Lamar Waldron has agreed to answer questions on his book, Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK (2005).

Because Castro had refused the inspection of Cuba specified in the October exchange of letters, Kennedy withheld a formal pledge not to invade Cuba. At his November 20, 1962 press conference. Kennedy said: "For our part, if all offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and kept out of the hemisphere in the future, under adequate verification and safeguards, and if Cuba is not used for the export of aggressive Communist purposes, there will be peace in the Caribbean."

Kennedy instructed John J. McCloy, who was negotiating the formal agreement with the Soviets without knowledge of the secret deal to dismantle the Jupiter missiles, that since the Cubans had refused U.N. verification, this was "the most we can do." No agreement was ever formalized and Kennedy allowed his November 20 statement to stand as his final public word on the settlement. Ted Sorensen later recalled, Kennedy "would have preferred a cleaner solution, but the way this worked out was really all right. We were able to continue our overflights, and Khrushchev got no no-invasion pledge."

In 1970, when Castro was again worrying about an invasion, this time from President Nixon, the Soviets used the construction of a submarine base at Cienfuegos Bay to compel the Americans to finally ratify the no-invasion pledge. Kissinger did so, asserting that the submarine base was prohibited by the 1962 understanding, which he privately described to the president as "never formally buttoned down."

I am very impressed by Ultimate Sacrifice, and unlike with Professor Mellen's book, can see that there is a wealth of new information contained therein. The main exception I take to the book thus far is that it misleadingly packages many of its revelations as new. As can be seen by John's statement above about the no-invasion pledge, even very old information is represented as new.

This is especially the case with regard to the plans for an invasion in late 1963. What has long been termed Second Naval Guerrilla is repackaged here and represented as new, with the authors even giving it a new name of their own: "C-Day." It is far from new information that Desmond FitzGerald said, just four months after the assassination: "If Jack Kennedy had lived, I can assure you we would have gotten rid of Castro by last Christmas."

Bill Turner and Warren Hinckle reported a quarter century ago that Manuel Artime's "MRR was receiving $250,000 a month" to set up the Second Naval Guerrilla operation in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. When Nicaragua's General Luis Somoza viewed the exiles' fleet at Monkey Point in 1963, he announced that "in November strong blows will begin against Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro by groups we are training."

Ultimate Sacrifice unhesitatingly asserts that the Kennedys were not aware of the Cubela plans. The authors do a good job of characterizing the Kennedys' thinking about their planning as "the US aiding 'Cubans helping other Cubans,' not as an assassination plan." One might wonder what effect the Vietnam coup just three weeks before Dallas would have had on the Kennedys' thinking in this regard. We know that years later, E. Howard Hunt worked in Nixon's White House fabricating a cable to implicate President Kennedy in Diem's assassination. In the case of C-Day we have it presented that the Kennedys initiated a coup on Vietnam on November 1 and had one planned for Cuba on December 1. But at least the authors are not asserting that they had two assassinations planned in the span of one month.

I do appreciate the point that there was an operation apart from Dallas that was piggybacked by the assassination conspirators. I have long maintained the same and have posted the memo to H.L. Hunt demonstrating that the administration's operation had been compromised. The hijacked operation framework helps explain both Oswald's and Bobby Kennedy's behaviors.

T.C.

Here is a review of the book from the "St. Petersburg Times":

TAMPA - Amid the grief and speculation that followed the assassination
of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, a story emerged of an aborted plot
to kill the president four days earlier as he rode through the streets
of Tampa.
Now, a new book about the assassination attempts to detail the Tampa
plot, joining the litany of literature about that fall day in Dallas.
In 900 pages, Ultimate Sacrifice, released Friday, offers a new twist
on an old conspiracy theory, with Tampa figuring prominently.
At its core is the notion that the killing was an organized crime hit
instigated, in part, by a local Tampa mobster, the late Santo
Trafficante Jr.
Authors Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann argue that a trifecta of Mafia
dons - Trafficante in Tampa, Carlos Marcello in New Orleans and Johnny
Roselli in Chicago - was responsible for killing Kennedy to halt Robert
Kennedy, then attorney general, from further Mafia prosecutions. The
theory isn't new.
Yet this book also alleges that the government was forced to cover up
Mafia involvement in the assassination to protect a top secret plan to
stage a coup in Cuba called C-Day. Mob associates had infiltrated the
secret project, according to the authors' interviews with Harry
Williams, a Cuban exile who said he organized C-Day for Robert Kennedy.
The book's central premise is that federal investigators couldn't
implicate the Mafia dons in the assassination without casting light on
the planned coup and threatening national security.
More interesting for local readers, the book also claims that
Trafficante was behind an attempt to kill Kennedy during his visit to
Tampa on Nov. 18, 1963.
Trafficante allegedly called off the attack after an informant alerted
law enforcement a few days before the visit, according to the book.
"Of course, Trafficante would have also known that there was still one
more chance to kill JFK, in Marcello's territory of Dallas," according
to Ultimate Sacrifice.
Plans for the would-be Tampa assassination resembled the Dallas
assassination, according to the book. The Tampa gunman would have fired
from a window of the Floridan Hotel, then the tallest building in the
city. (In Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of shooting from a
window on the sixth floor of a book depository.)
Kennedy and his entourage of limousines and squad cars wound their way
along 20 miles of Tampa streets that day.
Thousands of spectators flanked the route.
The motorcade was expected to slow for a left turn at the Floridan
Hotel. (In Dallas, Kennedy was shot while the motorcade slowed to make
a left turn.)
The book even names a patsy, a Cuban named Gilberto Policarpo Lopez who
was allegedly poised to take the fall in Tampa, unbeknownst to him,
according to the authors' interviews with Lopez's wife.
Waldron said he based his reporting of the Tampa plot on interviews
with former Tampa police Chief J.P. Mullins, a confidential law
enforcement source and a Chicago Secret Service agent, Abraham Bolden.
Mullins has since died.
Waldron also combed records at the Miami Police Department, the agency
that got the tip about the assassination plan.
"It's groundbreaking because it reveals the Tampa attempt for the first
time in any book, and it tells the complete story of the Tampa
attempt," said Waldron, who researched the book for 17 years with the
help of Hartmann.
Ultimate Sacrifice is Waldron's first book, although he has written
extensively about the Kennedy assassination and Robert Kennedy over the
past decade.
The Tampa assassination threat was reported in a story in the Tampa
Tribune that ran Nov. 23, the day after Kennedy was shot in Dallas. But
details were vague, and there was no follow-up.
An entire 300 pages of Ultimate Sacrifice is dedicated to explaining
what could have motivated Trafficante and the other Mafia bosses to
kill the president, as well as their efforts to get involved in Robert
Kennedy's alleged scheme to overthrow Fidel Castro. Trafficante's
interest in getting rid of President Kennedy and invading Cuba was tied
to getting back casinos he had lost in Havana when Castro took over and
his role in the narcotics trade, according to the book. The authors
pulled much of their Trafficante information from unclassified
documents, other books and Williams.
A Tampa native, Trafficante was reputed to be a top mob boss, taking
over in Tampa from his father in 1954. His name was mentioned in
connection with at least four mob hits, he was linked to gambling and
drugs, and he faced bribery, racketeering and tax evasion charges over
the years. But Trafficante never spent a night in a U.S. jail.
He kept modest homes in Tampa and North Miami Beach, and died in 1987
in a Houston hospital where he had gone for heart surgery.
In 1989, his former attorney, Tampa lawyer Frank Ragano, published a
book in which he said Trafficante had confessed to him in 1987 that he
had had something to do with the Kennedy assassination. Ragano repeated
the claim during sworn testimony he gave to the Assassination Records
Review Board in 1997. He has since died. Local Trafficante experts said
they were skeptical of this latest book reporting Trafficante's
involvement in the assassination, having never seen evidence supporting
such a theory.
"In all the research I've done on the matter, I've never heard of such
things," said Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agent Ken
Sanz, who is working as a consultant for a book in progress on
Trafficante. "Never. And quite frankly, it's fresh on my brain."
Waldron and publisher Carroll & Graf of Avalon stand by the reporting
in the book, citing thousands of pages of documents, many of which were
recently declassified. "It was critical to our credibility that we had
to prove C-Day and provide context for how the mob did it," said
Charlie Winton of Avalon. The book went on sale at bookstores
nationwide on Nov. 18, the anniversary of the planned Tampa
assassination attempt.

The Ultimate Sacrifice talks about an aborted Trafficante plan to kill JFK on November 18 in Tampa. Here are some outstanding photos of JFK in Tampa on November 18.

http://www.big13.net/JFK%20In%20Tampa/jfk_tampa10.htm

Here is the text of the HSCA on Gilberto Policarpo Lopez:


e) Gilberto Policarpo Lopez allegation

More troubling to the committee was another specific allegation discussed by the Senate committee. It concerned a Cuban-American named Gilberto Policarpo Lopez.(119) According to the account, Lopez obtained a tourist card in Tampa, Fla., on November 20, 1963, entered Mexico at Nuevo Laredo on November 23, and flew from Mexico City to Havana on November 27. (12O) Further, Lopez was alleged to have attended a meeting of the Tampa chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee on November 17, 1963, and at a December meeting of the chapter, Lopez was reported to be in Cuba. (12l)

The committee first examined the CIA files on Policarpo Lopez.(122) They reflect that in early December 1963, CIA headquarters received a classified message stating that a source had requested "urgent traces on U.S. citizen Gilberto P. Lopez." (123) According to the source, Lopez had arrived in Mexico on November 23 enroute to Havana and had disappeared with no record of his trip to Havana. The message added that Lopez had obtained tourist card No. 24553 in Tampa on November 20, that he had left Mexico for Havana November 27 on Cubana Airlines, and that his U.S. passport number was 310162.(124)

In another classified message of the same date, it was reported that the FBI had been advised that Lopez entered Mexico on November 27 at Nuevo Laredo. (125)

Two days later these details were added: Lopez had crossed the border at Laredo, Tex., on November 23; registered at the Roosevelt Hotel in Mexico City on November 25; and departed Mexico on November 27 on a Cubana flight for Havana. (126) Another dispatch noted that Lopez was the only passenger on Cubans flight 465 on November 27 to Havana. (127) It said he used a U.S. passport and Cuban courtesy visa. It noted, too: "Source states the timing and circumstances surrounding subject's travel through Mexico and departure for Havana are suspicious." It was this dispatch that alerted headquarters to the source's "urgent" request for all available data on Lopez. (128)

The same day as the dispatch, headquarters sent a cable identifying the Cuban-American as Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, born January 26, 1940. It added that Lopez was not identical with a Gilberto Lopez who had been active in pro-Castro groups in Los Angeles. (129)

Headquarters was also told that there existed a "good" photograph of Lopez, showing him wearing dark .glasses. A copy of the photograph with "27 November 1963" stamped on the back was found in his CIA file by committee investigators in 1978. (130)

In March 1964, CIA headquarters received a classified message: a source had reported in late February that an American citizen named

Page 119

Gilberto Lopes 11 had been involved in the Kennedy assassination; that Lopes had entered Mexico on foot from Laredo, Tex., on November 13 carrying U.S. passport 319962, which had been issued July 13, 1960; that he had been issued Mexican travel form B24553 in Nuevo Laredo; that Lopes had proceeded by bus to Mexico City "where he entered the Cuban Embassy"; and that he left the Cuban Embassy on November 27 and was the only passenger on flight 465 for Cuba. (132)

The following day, a classified message was sent to headquarters stating that the information "jibes fully with that provided station by [source] in early December 1963." (133)

A file had been opened on Lopez at headquarters on December 16, 1963. (134) It contained a "Review of [material omitted] file on U.S. Citizen" by an operations officer of the responsible component of the agency. In the review, the file was classified as a "counterintelligence case, (that is, involving a foreign intelligence or security service)." The date of entry of that category in the agency's records is indicated as January 22, 1975. (135)

The committee also reviewed an FBI investigation of Gilberto Policarpo Lopez in Key West, Fla., contained in a report dated August 1964.(136)

In an interview, Lopez' cousin, Guillermo Serpa Rodriguez, had said that Lopez had come to the United States soon after Castro came to power, stayed about a year and returned to Cuba because he was homesick. He returned to the United States in 1960 or 1961 fearing he would be drafted into the Cuban militia. (137)

The FBI also interviewed an American woman Lopez had married in Key West. She listed companies where he had been employed, including a construction firm in Tampa. She also said he began suffering from epileptic attacks, was confined for a time at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in early 1963, and was treated by doctors in Coral Gables and Key West. She said she believed the epilepsy was brought on by concern for his family in Cuba. (138)

Lopez' wife said she received a letter from him in about November 1963, saying he had returned to Cuba once more. She said she had been surprised, although he had mentioned returning, to Cuba before he left for Tampa in November 1963. In a later letter, Lopez told his wife he had received financial assistance for his trip to Cuba from an organization in Tampa. His wife explained that he would not have been able to pay for the trip without help. She said, however, he had not had earlier contacts with Cuban refugee organizations. (139)

11The committee noted the discrepancies in this message, as follows: the spelling of Lopes, for Lopez; the November 13 date and passport number 319962, issued July 13, 1960; and Lopez entering Mexico on foot. In its 1977 Task Force Report, the CIA cited the several "inaccuracies," as they had been repeated in the report of the Senate Select Committee, as reason to refute the report itself. The TFR pointed out that Lopez' name had been misspelled "Lopes," that it had Lopez entering Mexico on foot, when the CIA had information that he had traveled by automobile; that it listed incorrect digits for Lopez' passport number; that it stated that Lopez' Mexican tourist visa had been issued in Nuevo Laredo, not Tampa; and it reported that he had stayed at the Cuban Embassy. Based on these inaccuracies, the TFR concluded, "the source was patently and extensively misinformed." The TFR therefore discounted the March cable that held that the information "jibed" with what the CIA's source had earlier reported. (131)

The discrepancies pointed out in the TFR were apparently intended to explain why the CIA had not taken more aggressive investigative steps to determine whether there had been a connection between Lopez and the assassination.

Page 120

Rodriguez said Lopez left Key West in late 1963 for Tampa with the hope of being able to return to Cuba, explaining he was afraid he would be drafted into the U.S. military. Rodriguez said Lopez had not been involved in pro-Castro activity in Key West, but that he was definitely pro-Castro, and he had once gotten into a fistfight over his Castro sympathies. (140)

The FBI had previously documented that Lopez had actually been in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and had attended a meeting in Tampa on November 20, 1963. In a March 1964 report, it recounted that at a November 17 meeting of the Tampa FPCC, Lopez had said he had not been granted permission to return to Cuba but that he was awaiting a phone call about his return to his homeland.

In that March report, a Tampa FPCC member was quoted as saying she called a friend in Cuba on December 8, 1963, and was told that Lopez had arrived safely. She also said that the Tampa chapter of the FPCC had given Lopez about $190 for the trip to Cuba and that he had gone to Cuba by way of Mexico because he did not have a passport. (141)

The March 1964 FBI report stated that Lopez did have a U.S. passport-- it had been issued in January 1960 and was numbered 310162. His Mexican tourist card was numbered M8-24553 and was issued November 20, 1963 in Tampa. The report also confirmed that Lopez entered Mexico via Laredo, Tex., by automobile on November 23, and he departed for Havana on November 27, the only passenger on a Cubana flight. He was carrying a Cuban courtesy visa.(142)

Lopez' FBI file contained a memorandum from the Tampa office. Dated October 26, 1964, it read:
It is felt that information developed regarding the subject is not sufficient to merit consideration for the Security Index. (143)
The only information transmitted by the FBI to the Warren Commission, the committee determined, concerned a passport check on Lopez. Information sent to the Commission by the FBI on the Tampa chapter of the FPCC did not contain information on Lopez' activities. The CIA apparently did not provide any information to the Warren Commission on Lopez. (144) The committee concurred with the Senate Select Committee that this omission was egregious, since sources had reported within a few days of the assassination that the circumstances surrounding Lopez' travel to Cuba seemed "suspicious." Moreover, in March 1964, when the Warren Commission's investigation was in its most active stage, there were reports circulating that Lopez had been involved in the assassination.

In its 1977 Task Force Report, the CIA responded to the charges of the Senate committee. It claimed that the agency had carried its investigation of Lopez as far as it could, having questioned a Cuban defector about him. (145) The committee found that the absence of access to additional sources of information was not an adequate explanation for the agency's failure to consider more seriously the suspicions of its sources or to report what information it did have to the Warren Commission. Attempts in the Task Force Report to denigrate the information that was provided on Lopez were not an adequate substitute for enabling the Warren Commission itself to pursue the leads more aggressively.

Page 121

From the information gathered by the FBI, there appeared to be plausible reasons both for Lopez' desire to return to Cuba and for his solicitation of financial aid from the Tampa FPCC chapter. Lopez' contacts in Florida appeared to have been innocent and not connected with the assassination, and while there was a suggestion in the Senate committee's report that Lee Harvey Oswald also was in contact with the Tampa FPCC chapter, the committee could find no evidence of it. Nor could the committee find any evidence that Oswald was in contact with Lopez.

Lopez' association with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, however, coupled with the facts that the dates of his travel to Mexico via Texas coincide with the assassination, plus the reports in Mexico that Lopez' activities were "suspicious," all amount to a troublesome circumstance that the committee was unable to resolve with confidence.

Top of Page

Tim Gratz: This thread is for questions. If you have read Ultimate Sacrifice you would have realized that Lamar thinks that Gilberto Policarpo Lopez was set-up as a "patsy". Therefore, what is your question?

John, I guess my question would be why the authors believe Policarpo Lopez was a patsy and what they think of his trip to texas later in the week. as the HSCA report indicates, he obtained a fourteen day visa to enter Mexico on Wednesday, November 20th. My question is since he traveled from Tampa to Dallas is it possible (even probable) he was a conspirator rather than a patsy?

Obviously we are intrigued by the Policarpo Lopez story in part because of his Key West connections.

Here is the summary of the HSCA on why Cuba was not involved in the assassination:

While the committee did not take Castro's denials at face value, it found persuasive reasons to conclude that the Cuban Government was not involved in the Kennedy assassination. First, by 1963 there were prospects for repairing the hostility that had marked relations between the two countries since Castro had come to power. Second, the risk of retaliation that Cuba would have incurred by conspiring in the assassination of an American President must have canceled out other considerations that might have argued for that act. President Castro's description of the idea as "insane" is appropriate. And there was no evidence indicating an insane or grossly reckless lack of judgment on the part of the Cuban Government. Third, the CIA had both the motive to develop evidence of Cuban involvement and access to at least substantial, if incomplete, information bearing on relevant aspects of it, had such involvement existed. Its absence, therefore, must be weighed in the balance. Finally, the Cuban Government's cooperation with this committee in the investigation must be a factor in any judgment. In conclusion, the committee found, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Query whether the first two reasons withstand the new evidence re the planned coup/invasion as set forth in "The Ultimate Sacrifice"?

(1) In your book you state:

“This “palace coup” would be led by one of Castro’s inner circle, himself a well-known revolutionary hero. This man, the coup leader, would cause Castro’s death, but without taking the credit or blame for doing so. The coup leader would be part of the new Provisional Government in Cuba, along with a select group of Cuban exiles - approved by the Kennedys - who ranged from conservative to progressive. The identity of the coup leader is known to the authors, and has been confirmed by Kennedy associates and declassified documents. However, US national security laws may prevent the direct disclosure of past US intelligence assets even long after their deaths, so we will not directly name the coup leader in this book. Since we have no desire to violate national security laws or endanger US intelligence assets, we will only disclose official information that has been declassified or is available in the historical record.”

It is clear that if the coup was to succeed the leader from within the government would have been able to get the immediate respect of the Cuban people. That they was someone who was clearly identified with the original revolution that had deposed Fulgencio Batista. Although you do not name him, I suspect that the person concerned was Che Guevara. He is of course someone who would have had a chance of being accepted by the Cuban people after the removal of Castro. However, I find it difficult to believe that Guevara would have found it possible to work with people like Enrique Ruiz-Williams, Manuel Artime, Manolo Ray, Eloy Menoya and Tony Varona in any new government. Nor do I see how people like Artime and Varona would have worked with Guevara. If I had been them, I would have thought it was just a matter of time before Guevara took over complete control of the government. Even if it is not Guevara you are talking about, any other figure in the Castro government, would have faced the same problems about working with people, who by 1963, were seen as counter-revolutionaries.

(2) Several people whose judgement I respect have argued privately to me that you have made a mistake in your identification of what you call the “C-Day Plan”. That you are tangling up AMLASH, AMTRUNK and Artime’s Second Naval Guerrilla operation. Or that C-Day was a mutation of the Cubela operation.

John, it would also seem to me an appropriate question why the Kennedys apparently thought they could pull off this coup without retaliation from the Soviet Union.

It is clear there was no love lost between Khruschev and Fidel after the Cuban missile crisis when Fidel thought Khruschev had sold him out.

Query whether the Kennedys had made an agreement with Khruschev to replace Castro with someobe more acceptable to both?

The suggestion of Guevera is interesting indeed. Although Cubela must also be considered. As I am sure you know Cubela was the leader of a rival anti-Batista group. If I recall right, the date that his group and the July 26th movement agreed to consolidate or cooperate was--ready for this?--Nov 22nd (of 1957 or 1958?) Clearly a coincidence.

Tim, Lamar covers that point in extensive detail in the book so I gather you haven't read it yet?

Start with the fact that Lopez was in the US and had been trying for over a year to get into
Cuba to visit his ailing mother - and shows absolutely no signes of having any training or
experience in covert operations much less as an actual shooter or participant. Go on with
his having made him so visible by his efforts to get to Cuba that there document references suggesting
he may even have been a recruitment target for US intel. Then go to the fact that virtually
all the reports on him are second or third hand...but starting with reports from Morales
AMOT's. Add in the fact that although he was reported in Chicago, Tampa and Dallas but that
there were no actual sightings in any of the cities about all you are left with is that he a) got
the paperwork he needed to transit to Cuba after a year or more of trying and did go
to Cuba as soon as he received it.

I think that I suggested ages ago that if you want to use him as a possible Castro agent you need
to get the actual documents and evaluate them yourself....as Lamar has done to reach his
conclusions.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that Morales and company would have been in an ideal
position to know about Lopez and generate the reports that would make him look suspicious.

......that's a very abbrieviated synopsis of Lamar's coverage...although as I read it he is
more inclined to see Lopez as being set up by Trafficante. Personally that's one of the
areas where I think forcing everything to a Mafia theme makes less sense than a conspiracy
involving Roselli and Morales as principals. Call that you will...maybe "MAFCIA"...grin.

-- Larry

1. I also wonder about the authors' views on the question of Soviet retaliation, at least in Berlin. The Kennedys had been bending over backward to avoid exposure of the Secret Deal to dismantle the NATO Jupiter Missiles. Ultimate Sacrifice makes it clear that the coup had to appear indigenous, request from Provisional Govt., etc. etc. But those considerations are not fundamentally different than what was in place at the Bay of Pigs.

2. As much as the book depicted the December 1st launch date as virtually carved in stone, it does also note that Harry Williams began to notice a "lull" in the Kennedys' enthusiasm, and that they were beginning to drag their feet. What would the more belligerent anti-Castro elements think of the Kennedys reneging?

T.C.

Abraham Bolden seems to be a very well informed person concerning efforts and attempts to kill JFK.
He also did report of a planned attempt on the 2nd of November in Chicago.
Thomas Arthur Vallee, a former marine who took this day off and travelled to Chicago with a M-1 and 3000 bullets, is being arrested but released the same day. The information was taken serious and JFK cancelled his trip to Chicago. Later Bolden, who wondered why his information was excluded from the WC, was arrested and had to spend a couple of years in prison, thanks to Lee Rankin.

So I'd like to ask Lamar Waldron:

Q: Did A. Bolden ever reveal to the authors why he had previous knowledge of these two diffrent attempts
and why his warnings were taken seriously but were later excluded from the WC?

George

In response to Larry's Post #11, I am anxiously waiting a copy of "Ultimate Sacrifice" to read it cover-to-cover.

Regarding Policarpo Lopez, however, he certainly appeared to be in Texas on the day of the assassination and his flight back to Cuba from Mexico City seemed suspicious. (See Peter Whitney's article re his flight from Mexico City to Havana.)

I assume you agree that Trafficante was probably involved in the assassination.

We have Policarpo Lopez moving from Key West to Tampa (Trafficante's home town) about the same time frame that the assassination plans started. That in itself is a bit curious.

Two days after the assassination attempt in Tampa was aborted by the planners, Policarpo Lopez gets his paper to enter Mexico.

Let us just take a small "leap of logic" here and assume he was in Dallas on November 22nd.

How many other people can you identify who were both in Tampa and in Dallas? And left the country the day after the assassination?

If I was an investigating detective, I would want to interview anyone who was in Tampa on november 18th and then in Dallas on November 22nd--particularly a Cuban (whether pro or anti Castro).

Another way to address the question would be: how many other Cubans who were in Tampa the day an assassination attempt was to take place moved to Cuba shortly after the assassination?

The HSCA found Policarpo Lopez's travels around the time of the assassination "troublesome" and that was (per "The Ultimate Sacrifice") without any knowledge by the HSCA of the aborted assassination attempt in Dallas.

Perhaps I am a bit more suspicious than you but I would be troubled by any person, regardless of his background, who left the country--for Cuba--within a day of the assassination and was in Tampa when JFK visited there and was probably in Dallas the day of the assassination.

He just happened to get his travel papers two days before the assassination after trying to get them for a year? A rather unusual happenstance, I would think.

Moreover, I find it most suspicious that anyone would leave Key West for Tampa!

I mean there would seem to be a clear inference or possibility at least that Policarpo Lopez was going to be used in the assassination in Tampa but when that attempt was aborted Trafficante sent him to Dallas.

Tim, let me try this again. Gilberto Lopez was supposed to look suspicious, he was supposed
to point toward Castro. He may well have been intended to be a diversion by any security
personnel looking for Cuban agents doing surveillance or preparing for an attack on JFK.

To get beyond that, I'd love to see you do some real research on him. Do a monograph
giving us his family background, his education and training, the history and sequence of
his moves. What his wife said about him; what he said about going to visit his mother
in Cuba. His efforts to obtain an entry visa; how long that took and when he actually got it.
You would find all that in Ultimage Sacrifice plus the documents it cites.

Also consider his possible value to US intelligence because of his brother...and factor in
the intel memos on him that Lamar cites.

Then chart out the informant reports and investigations....who said he was where, who
said he was suspicious for what reason. And show us who those informants
connect to....Trafficante perhaps?.....Morales perhaps?......CIA domestic ops?

Then perhaps we can really discuss who if anyone was pulling his strings. And judge
if first paragraph is correct. Or if you still consider him a viable Castro agent and
possible assassination participant (and in what role...certainly as a courier he would
have been about as covert as Oswald).....so far the record shows that FPCC members
were being used by US intel not Cuban (reference AM/SANTA joint FBI-CIA project).

-- by the way, Happy Holidays.

----------------------------------
Lamar, Thom, Tim:


My Question IS: Having received my copy of this well researched Tome -- and while trying to avoid a hernia during "footnote" browsing and pagination (with "Post-Its"); will I eventually be shocked to discover, somewhere therein, a reference to the strong evidence that Trafficante was a Castro agent, and who was "recruited" while still "confined?" at the Triscornia quarantine facility ??


Will I also find that: Because those Dagos/Wops always talked too much on the telephone, and in FBI "bugged" social clubs -- there is no big mystery that Siragusa knew early on, that Santo was an active Cuban asset, first for D.I.E.R. [G-2] and ultimately for DGI/DSE ??


Will I find that he was "Tripled" by JJA's guys, and that when RFK was warned of "Barba Roja"s" penetration
[and/or assassination] scheme -- that the counter-plan was to create a "provocation" readily traceable directly back to Habana; and via the exposure of the "Cosa Nostra" having facilitated said scheme ??

[Bobby & Co. get 2 birds with one "stone" (out of his shoe) and ignites a "burning bush" !!]


And will there be a mention that when Habana ultimately informs Trafficante of what actually went down, and he is later in a position to expose ALL (including LBJ's criminal foibles) -- he is rewarded with the "Golden Triangle" Heroin source [removing Union Corse control] and which helps to seal his big mouth ??!!

Great looking book so far !!

Chairs,

GPH

______________________________

To Mr Waldron:

Reference is made to the attached:


http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/revie...ombs-files.html

Any idea what information about you is in "Box 11"?

I understand that William Turner has endorsed "Ultimate Sacrifice". I hope he will correct this if I overspoke.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/12...onse/print.html

The mafia, the coup and the murder
The authors respond to David Talbot's review of "Ultimate Sacrifice."
By Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann

Dec. 07, 2005 | We appreciate the serious coverage of "Ultimate Sacrifice" in Salon.com, but there are several assertions and omissions in the review written by David Talbot that we'd like to address.

"Ultimate Sacrifice" presents evidence from thousands of pages of declassified documents that John and Robert Kennedy planned to stage a coup against Castro on Dec. 1, 1963, and that the plan was infiltrated by three Mafia bosses (from the mob families that controlled Chicago, Tampa and Dallas). The Mafia chiefs then used parts of the coup plan, including some U.S. intelligence assets, in their plot to kill JFK -- first trying in Chicago, then Tampa, and finally Dallas -- in a way that forced a coverup to protect national security, and the coup plan. The documentary evidence is backed up by accounts from almost two dozen Kennedy associates involved in aspects of those events, and their aftermath.

The most glaring omission in Talbot's review was not addressing or even mentioning AMWORLD, the CIA's code name for their supporting role in the Kennedy coup plan in 1963. AMWORLD is a major focus of the book. "Ultimate Sacrifice" not only reveals this recently declassified operation for the first time, but documents that it was withheld from the Warren Commission and later congressional investigating committees.

AMWORLD, which began on June 28, 1963, was an integral part of the Kennedys' plan for a coup in Cuba and it's impossible to consider one without the other. Coup planning began in January 1963 as a slow-moving, bureaucratic exercise, and the plan was only in its fourth draft by June 1963. But that month, planning began in earnest after the real opportunity for a high-level coup arose. After the CIA created AMWORLD, millions of dollars began to be devoted to the coup plan. From that point forward, coup planning proceeded rapidly, demonstrating that it had become a live operation. By September 1963 the "Plan for a Coup in Cuba" was in its 13th draft, and the rapid pace accelerated further, continuing through November of 1963. (After JFK's death, the CIA kept the AMWORLD code name, but without the involvement of Robert Kennedy and other key figures, the plan changed radically.)

The most important of our five sources who actively worked on the coup plan was the Kennedys' top Cuban exile aide, Enrique "Harry" Ruiz-Williams (who asked us to always call him "Harry"). Talbot acknowledged in his review that Harry was close to RFK, but says that Harry's "belief that a Kennedy-backed assault on the Castro regime was imminent might be a case of wishful thinking." That's not what the evidence demonstrates. Harry's account -- and that of the others -- is backed up by many declassified coup plan and AMWORLD documents that talk about them and the operation. High-level AMWORLD documents from November 1963 say that "all US plans (were) being coordinated through" Harry and he had been "so named by Robert Kennedy."

By Nov. 22, 1963, millions of dollars had been spent on the coup plan, hundreds of Cuban-American troops had been trained, U.S. assets were going into Cuba, and everything was ready. As noted in the book, a long-overlooked Washington Post article confirms that Harry's work "had reached an important point" by November 22, when Harry "participated in the most crucial of a series of secret meetings with top-level CIA and government people about Cuba." Harry and other Kennedy associates told us he was going into Cuba the following day, to await the Dec. 1, 1963, coup -- a date consistent with what we were told by others who worked with RFK on the coup plan and which is contained in an AMWORLD memo from JFK's CIA director.

Talbot seems skeptical of the coup plan because JFK's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told him he didn't know about a "major Cuban intervention" in late 1963. Talbot also questions the credibility of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who first told us about the coup plan in 1990. However, Talbot didn't mention that Rusk gave an on-the-record confirmation of the coup plan to Anthony Summers for Vanity Fair in 1994, three years before the first "Plan for a Coup in Cuba" documents were declassified. Rusk even explained to Summers why the Kennedys pursued the coup plan and secret peace negotiations with Castro at the same time, saying, "It was just an either/or situation. That went on frequently," though Rusk told Summers that in doing so, "the Kennedys 'were playing with fire.'"

As the book explains, we have only identified a dozen people so far who were fully informed about the coup plan prior to JFK's death, and McNamara wasn't one of them. Evidence indicates the only military figures who were fully informed include Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Defense Intelligence Agency chief Gen. Joseph Carroll, and Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance. Rusk told us he only learned about the coup plan after JFK's death. Still, Rusk and his subordinates -- and other officials -- had helped to shape the coup plan while JFK was alive, having been told it was being developed in case the CIA found a powerful Cuban official willing to stage a coup against Castro. That's why Talbot was in error when he wrote we must "have confused what were contingency plans for a coup in Cuba for the real deal."

The coup plan was so serious that in the days and weeks before Dallas, Robert Kennedy had a secret committee making plans for dealing with the possible "assassination of American officials" if Castro found out and tried to retaliate. The same people working on those plans were also working on the coup plan and AMWORLD. While Talbot didn't mention those plans in his review, we did include a Nov. 12, 1963, document from that committee in our excerpt, which Salon was kind enough to run.

Our book cites documents totaling thousands of pages from the National Archives, which we encourage people to view for themselves. A reader of Talbot's review might get the impression that we pieced together our story of AMWORLD and the "Plan for a Coup in Cuba" from the documents released in the mid- to late 1990s, but that is not correct. Starting in 1990, we were told about the coup plan and the CIA by Dean Rusk and other Kennedy associates, long before any of the documents were released. We made public presentations about the coup plan and the CIA's role in it beginning in 1993, at historical conferences, on the History Channel, and in Vanity Fair, to draw attention to the documents that remained unreleased. When the coup plan documents finally started being declassified in 1997, they included the same people and phrases ("Plan for a Coup in Cuba") we'd been using for years.

Talbot says we "take pains to (repeatedly) exonerate the CIA in the killing of Kennedy," but we present evidence against several CIA personnel that implicates them to some degree in JFK's assassination. "Ultimate Sacrifice" details how AMWORLD was one way three Mafia bosses -- Carlos Marcello of Louisiana (who controlled the rackets in Dallas), Tampa's Santo Trafficante, and Johnny Rosselli of the Chicago mob -- infiltrated the Kennedy coup plan. For example, we quote CIA documents showing that Rosselli's mob paid $200,000 in August 1963 to one of the Cuban exile leaders for the coup plan and AMWORLD, Tony Varona.

Using the CIA's own declassified documents, our book exposes Mafia-compromised CIA assets, extensive CIA intelligence failures, unauthorized operations, and the stonewalling of Robert Kennedy and government committees by certain CIA officials -- all under the veil of secrecy covering AMWORLD.

The CIA personnel and CIA exile assets whom Talbot himself fingers at the end of his review -- Morales, Phillips, Harvey, Varona, Artime -- were all the subjects of incriminating new evidence presented in "Ultimate Sacrifice," and most had major roles in AMWORLD in 1963. Though we also present exculpatory facts where they exist, we present serious evidence against people like David Morales -- operations chief of Miami's huge CIA station in 1963 and close to Rosselli -- as well as exile leaders such as Varona and Manuel Artime.

Our focus on Marcello and his allies being behind JFK's death didn't originate with us -- it came from Robert Kennedy and his associates. It's well documented that after Robert F. Kennedy learned all he could from several private investigations, RFK told close associates such as Richard Goodwin and Hoffa prosecutor Walter Sheridan that New Orleans godfather Marcello was behind his brother's death. In 1979, the House Select Committee on assassinations -- whose director was a former Mafia prosecutor for RFK -- concluded that both Marcello and Trafficante had the motive, means and opportunity to kill JFK. However, since so much was withheld from the committee (including AMWORLD, the "Plan for a Coup in Cuba," the Tampa assassination attempt four days before Dallas, etc.), they weren't able to find conclusive proof.

After spending several years reviewing all the theories about the assassination, we were pointed toward a conspiracy led by Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli by a knowledgeable Kennedy associate in 1992, and quickly found a huge amount of supporting evidence. In addition to all the documentary evidence, we talked with five attorneys who worked under RFK at the Justice Department, as well as Pierre Salinger, who worked for the Kennedys in the 1950s as a Senate Mafia investigator targeting Marcello. Typical is Ronald Goldfarb, who concluded in his own book about those years "the likelihood [was] that our organized crime program" caused "Marcello and Trafficante to plot an audacious assassination."

Our book documents the godfathers' infiltration of the coup plan, and how they linked it to JFK's assassination in over a dozen ways, from the bullet found in Oswald's rifle to exile leaders like Varona. Talbot says RFK could have simply explained "the national security concerns in the judge's chambers" and proceeded with his prosecutions, but it would have been impossible to prosecute -- or even extensively investigate -- the godfathers' role without completely exposing the coup and invasion plan. In those tense Cold War times, just a year after the nuclear standoff during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that could have triggered a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets.

RFK tried to prosecute Marcello for other offenses even after JFK's death, to no avail. The attorney general kept the pressure on Jimmy Hoffa, a close ally of Marcello and Trafficante, and on Rosselli's Chicago Mafia. But if it had been publicly reported that the attorney general of the United States even suspected the Mafia of his brother's death, defense attorneys in those cases and many more would have had a field day. Talbot also failed to mention that Marcello, Trafficante and Rosselli all eventually confessed their involvement in JFK's assassination to associates. Two men who worked with Trafficante and Rosselli -- and who documents confirm knew about AMWORLD -- also confessed to friends, later in life.

Talbot says we "assert that Bobby blamed only the Mafia (and New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello in particular) for the death of his brother," but we also detail RFK's initial suspicions directed at the CIA. This includes not only RFK asking CIA director John McCone if the CIA killed his brother, but RFK's statement to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Haynes Johnson that "one of your guys did it," just hours after JFK's murder. As the book explains, Johnson was working at the time on a book with Manuel Artime, and CIA files now show Artime was not only involved in AMWORLD but working on the CIA-Mafia plots against Castro (which involved Rosselli, Trafficante and Marcello) and that the CIA had considered using the Mafia as a cover to provide weapons to Artime as part of AMWORLD.

Talbot says he can't understand "why in the world would organized crime bosses knock off Kennedy just days before he was about to knock off Castro?" As the book explains, the Kennedys tried to exclude the Mafia from any involvement in the coup plan, and any involvement in Cuba after the coup. As our sources told us and documents confirm, the Kennedys' goal for Cuba was a democracy with "free elections." Helping to ensure that would be the presence of U.S. troops, so even if the Kennedy coup plan were successful, it would do the Mafia no good.

The Mafia bosses had to kill JFK before the Dec. 1, 1963, coup, because only the top-secret coup plan/AMWORLD could provide the secrecy the Mafia needed to prevent a thorough, public investigation of JFK's assassination. Plus, Marcello was already on trial by RFK's men and Rosselli's Chicago mafia was under attack from RFK and the attorney general had just announced a massive crackdown on Las Vegas, where Rosselli represented the Chicago mob. Rosselli and Marcello weren't even U.S. citizens, and feared deportation even if they were only convicted of a relatively minor offense. Trafficante's criminal empire, and his close ally Hoffa, were under constant assault by RFK, so eliminating JFK to end RFK's war against them had to be the first order of business for the mob bosses. If the Mafia chiefs later wanted to eliminate Castro (which some experts feel Trafficante didn't want to do), they always had the CIA-Mafia plots to use against Castro, plots they played a major role in, unlike the Kennedys' coup plan.

By the end of Talbot's review we don't seem that far apart in our conclusions, of a conspiracy involving mob godfathers, some CIA personnel, and a few Cuban exiles. Our hope is that all authors, historians and researchers can work to get the remaining million-plus files that we talk about in our book released, and follow the evidence wherever it leads.

-- By Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann

Evidence indicates the only military figures who were fully informed include Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Defense Intelligence Agency chief Gen. Joseph Carroll, and Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance.

Oh, my gosh!!! The last name of the chief of the Defense Inteelligence Agency (the agency which was running Oswald) was Carroll?

Say it isn't so, Tim!

-----------------------------------------

Amongst what remains to be declassified are: The May 1963 DIA intelligence reports. The DIA had focused on the Soviet Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which was tasked to defend the nuclear tipped "Luna" Anti-Maritime ["Cruise"] missiles based at Banes, Oriente Province, Cuba. The greatest alarm raised during April 1963, was: Whether this Soviet Brigade could be counted upon to successfully repel an attempted takeover of the missile sites by Cuban army and militia forces ?!.


[I had briefed both General Krulak [S.A.C.S.A.] at the Pentagon, and VIPs at State, with reference to these matters during February, 1963.]


The Cuban troops were mainly hardened combat veterans, who had recently eliminated two CIA/DIA supported anti-Castro guerrilla columns. One of said columns was operating in the Escambray, and the other had its AOR centered on Raul Castro's old "stomping grounds", the Sierra Cristal -- near Banes.


The Castro forces, which had suddenly made a dramatic increase in size, were LCB/DSE troops of "Division 50"; and were led by one of the same Cuban Generals who later commanded the Cuban Expeditionary Brigade in Angola, Raul menendez Tommasevich. The intelligence boss [and Director of the Cent/Comm "Americas Desk"] for this Banes missile site takeover plan was Manuel "Barba Roja" Piniero.


The CIA/DIA anti-Castro guerrilla/commando column near Banes was the very same one that had been lead by Captains Roberto "Tico" Herrera, and Argemiro Fonseca. These are the two same guerrilla leaders, whom, while working for the CIA at GITMO, commanded the "reception committee" and awaiting the landing of the Santa Ana, as it approached Baracoa, some four days before the Bay of Pigs invasion.

They made the decision to warn Nino Diaz's commandos away from the landing site, because they suspected that they, and their commandos, dressed as Castro Militia, might be involved in a "provocation Op" against the GITMO naval base.


One of the "Secret CIA Kommisars" aboard the Santa Ana -- had to be physically restrained from taking over command of the ship !! His name was Jorge Mas Canosa, who as the later founder & leader of the Cuban American Foundation, financed Luis "Bambi" Posada Carriles in his years of unsuccessful & multiple attempts at assassinating Fidel Castro.


The greatest urgency came after the debriefing of the Soviet missile officers whom had been delivered to the CIA commando team aboard the m/v "Rex" near Baracoa, Oriente Province, Cuba. These Soviet officers were accorded POW status as they had NOT defected, but had been captured by elements of Eduardo "Bayo" Perez's guerrilla column, which was in support of the Herrera/Fonseca guerrilla column.


The POW Soviet officers revealed that "Rogue" Soviet Intelligence Officers [G.R.U. & K.G.B.] were plotting to assist the Tommasevich/Piniero forces in forcibly taking control of the "Luna" missile base.


[During recent conversations with the son of the late Captain of the CIA mother-ship "m/v REX"; he has absolutely refused to involve himself with any "conspiracy whackos" who might be tempted to involve his father's family name in the ongoing "psychotic" rantings against "everything" CIA !!]


Howard K. "Davy" Davis and I, had initially orchestrated the "Bayo" operation. However, our plan involved our first capturing Haitian territory [Cap d'Haitien]; and from there we planned to stage repeated attacks against the LCB/DSE forces in northern Oriente Province. However, we were overruled, and the operation passed into the hands of Bill Pawley and the Miami CIA base [JM/WAVE].


We weren't the only folks who were vocally upset about this pre-emption of our longe-range plans. Money for the "Bayo" operation, almost $200, 000 -- had come from multiple contributors; including a wealthy lady from Baltimore, and members of the "Merrill's Marauders Association". [They insisted that we carry their "Colors" into combat inside Cuba !!]

Davis and I had insisted that: The safest plan would be, to have a firm foreign base of operations near eastern Cuba, and that we couldn't afford to wait upon Artime's , et al. setting up the bases in nicaragua and Costa Rica. Especially not, when considering that we already had active combatives engaged inside of Cuba at the time !!


[Ironically, one of the more famous of the WWII "Merrill's Marauders", later retired as Director of the D.I.A. -- moreover, he is alive and well, and currently runs a small college.]


Later [and with Chairs],

GPH

____________________________--

I have not read it yet but I certainly plan to.

FYI- The FDLE Ken Sanz, quoted in the St. Pete Times article, has investigated the Trafficante crime family for over 25 years- he's the guru.

Couple questions:

In 1963, Trafficante was under heavy surveillance by Sheriff Ed Blackburn and was spending a lot of his time in Miami. Don't you think it would have been foolish for him to even consider hitting JFK in Tampa, without it coming quickly back to him?

Did Johnny "Scarface" Rivera figure into the plot?



I do think Trafficante was involved in some aspect of the assasination, and look forward to reading your work.

In addition to the answers below, I’d encourage people to read the other material on the web about the book. We’ve added several key documents to the "Documentation" part of our web site (more to come):

http://www.ultimatesacrificethebook.com/

The book’s entire Introduction (really an overview of the whole book) is available on buzzflash, complete with extensive endnotes.

http://www.buzzflash.com/

Salon.com has our response to their review, as well as the chapter on the Tampa assassination attempt (with endnotes).

Our website also has a chapter on Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli. We’re so confident in our sources and documentation that we want to make as much available as possible. Some points raised in the Forum will influence what we put on the website in the future.

As for the Provisional Government after the coup, keep in mind several things:

Many of the people involved had worked together during the Revolution, despite their disparate backgrounds and political beliefs. Some had worked together during the early days of the Revolutionary government.

In the same way, the Kennedys hoped these same men would once again be able to work together for the good of Cuba after the coup, in the new Provisional government. Their common enemy would be both Castro and the Russians in Cuba. The presence of US troops in Cuba whether a few hundred Cuban-American troops or up to the "full-scale invasion" the documents discuss - would help to ensure the Cuban faction didn’t completely dominate, after the coup.

However, the book also makes it clear that even the exile leaders, there were already sginificant strains, with leaders like Ray and Menoyo being reluctant to sign on to the plan because of various concerns, and Artime wanting to take a leading role.





They’re confusing the plans against Castro after JFK’s death, with the plans against Castro before JFK’s death. As we say in the book, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba changed drastically after JFK died. Before JFK’s death, the CIA’s supporting role in the Coup Plan was called AMWORLD and started in June 1963.

AMTRUNK had been going since January 1963 (looking for someone powerful enough to stage a coup against Castro without much success). AMLASH had been going in fits and starts since late 1960, but would start ramping up significantly in September 1963. RFK was basically calling the shots on the Coup Plan/AMWORLD and AMTRUNK, and with the US military (Vance, Carroll, Taylor). There’s no credible evidence RFK knew about the assassination component of AMLASH, though as we say, some Administration officials outside the CIA did know abut Cubela, and saw him as someone trying to find someone powerful enough to stage a coup against Castro (the same goal as AMTRUNK). AMLASH Case Officer testimony also shows that Cubela was being used to provide intelligence about those who would stage the coup. (While Cubela was not very close to Castro, or considered part of his inner circle by most experts, the Case Officer did admit Cubela was very close to one very high Cuba official, saying - if I recall correctly - Cubela "was intimate with Che
Guevara.")

So, before JFK’s death, AMWORLD, AMTRUNK, and AMLASH were separate operations. After JFK’s death, RFK was out of the picture, as were other key individuals, like Harry Williams. So, the CIA combined the remnants of AMWORLD - including Artime - with AMTRUNK and AMLASH, and kept things going through 1964 and part of 1965. (Tad Szulc - who helped to create AMTRUNK, and met with Che Guevara in New York City in December 1965 - named the Artime side of this operation "Second Naval Guerilla," in later articles.) That’s what causes confusion for some researchers, since the CIA kept using the AMWORLD code name on documents into 1964 and 1965, even though things were radically different after JFK died.



We believe it is most likely Lopez was an unknowing patsy based on reading all the declassified documents
about him and his associates (including the Tampa FBI files, with wire tap transcripts of people who knew Lopez), and talking to both his ex-wife and a high Florida law enforcement official who was aware of Lopez - and knew other officials and informants who were aware of Lopez. Also, Lopez was extensively investigated by the FBI and CIA after the assassination, but the more they investigated, the more information turned up that made him seem like an easily-manipulated patsy.

Remember that the Tampa attempt was kept completely out of the press at the time, so Lopez (as a patsy)
may have been completely unaware of what had almost gone down. And, would have attached no special significance in being asked to accompany someone to Texas, in preparation for going to Mexico City and then on to Cuba, where he wanted to return (for a variety of reasons). If Lopez had knowingly been part of the Tampa conspiracy, he would have known going to Texas (or Dallas) would draw suspicion to him, and - since he didn’t drive or own a car - he would have been in a difficult position, with few options if problems developed.

Lopez appears to be someone who - like Oswald - on the surface looks suspicious. But the more you dig into their background, they don’t seem like someone who would either kill JFK for unknown reasons or whom the Mafia would use for anything but a patsy (since the Mafia would want to use a trusted professional to fire the actual shots, someone with a proven track record who was not only a good shot, but who wouldn’t hesitate to fire). And the many parallels between Oswald and Lopez outlined in the book (moving to a new city, leaving their wives, contact with FPCC, etc.) indicates they were being manipulated by the same person or persons, for the same reason.

As for whether Lopez would have had some asset or informant role for some US agency, that’s a possibility that’s explored in the book.

We go out of our way repeatedly in the book to give credit to earlier researchers, whether in regard to the myth of the no-invasion pledge or to the plan for a coup in Cuba.

With the no-invasion pledge, our point is that it’s still commonly believed and repeated in almost every documentary and book. In fact, I believed it until Dean Rusk told me it wasn’t true. I then looked for other support for what Rusk had said, and found some in Beschloss (which I quote in the book) and a massively documented case in Chang and Kornbluh’s book, "The Cuban Missile Crisis." (For my presentation at JFK/Lancer in 2004, I even lugged their huge book to Dallas to show during my talk.)

Likewise, we quote and cite them extensively by name in the book. We’re telling people not to take our word for the pledge being myth - here is what others (and the documentation) have been saying since the early 1990s.

The same goes for the coup plan, with one key difference. Our book uses more quotes than probably any other book ever in the field, and we go out of our way to show that people like Al Burt and Tad Szulc and William Turner had written about aspects of the coup plan in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. We want people to look at what they wrote years ago, long before any of the documents had been released, since they all had key inside sources.

However, both Burt and Szulc put most of the action in 1964 (and 1965), after the real coup plan had been cancelled, and when the CIA had combined the remnants of AMWORLD with AMTRUNK and AMLASH. As such, they were somewhat vague about what exactly was supposed to happen, and how it would be different from a Bay of Pigs-style invasion after an assassination attempt.

William Turner’s 1973 interview with Harry Williams was not published - even in part - until "The Fish is Red"
in 1981. And even then, Harry had not fully revealed to Turner what was supposed to happen or everyone who was involved. (Though I was so impressed with what Turner had uncovered that when I finally read a copy of "Fish" in the late 1980s , I was determined to see that it became available again, and brought it to the attention of the publisher who eventually reissued the updated edition as "Deadly Secrets.")

As I say in "Ultimate Sacrifice," Turner provided us with the complete notes of his Harry Williams interview, so we were able to hit the ground running and soon got Harry to reveal the entire plan for a coup in Cuba. This included all the key exile leaders involved, the Cuban-American troops, the "palace coup," and the Provisional government. All of which we talked about in public (1993 ASK, 1994 ASK, History Channel, Vanity Fair) before the documentation was released.

So, we didn’t piece our story together from accounts from Burt, Szulc, etc., as helpful as their accounts
were, after the fact. We got the full story from key people who worked with Robert Kennedy, then we showed in the book that parts of it had been written about for years, and can now be documented from declassified files.



There’s no compelling evidence that RFK (and JFK) knew about the assassination aspect of Cubela, but that doesn’t mean they were unaware of him entirely. As we note, we talked to an official (outside the CIA) who served on one of Bobby’s secretive subcommittees who did know about Cubela in the Fall of 1963, prior to the assassination. He knew Cubela as someone the CIA was in contact with, who was looking for someone powerful enough to stage a coup. That’s something the CIA was trying to do with AMTRUNK, and there was also a joint CIA-DIA task force looking for the same thing.

So, people outside the CIA working with RFK knew about those efforts to find someone powerful enough to stage a coup. So, it’s possible - even likely - that RFK knew about Cubela (generally, if not by name) as part of those efforts. But that’s very different from knowing the CIA is trying to get Cubela to assassinate Castro.



I wish I’d had room in the book for a lot of things, and I would have liked to speculate on JFK’s feelings about the Cuba coup plan after the assassination of Diem. (But I didn’t include that, in favor of including more factual material.) Most historians agree that the Kennedys backed the coup, but didn’t think Diem would be assassinated (only forced into exile). I think Diem’s death (on the same day of the Chicago plot against JFK) would have driven the point home to JFK just how deadly the whole business of coups was, and how the unexpected could happen. Hence, the efforts at a peaceful solution with Attwood continued (and JFK had already asked Jean Daniel to help). Yet, the plans for a coup in Cuba continued, and by November 18 (with JFK’s speech) and November 22, 1963, it was clear it was pretty much a "go." Once Harry was inside Castro’s Cuba (by 11/24) to await the coup, it would have been difficult to call things off, though I have no doubt that if Jean Daniel had reached some sort of breakthrough with Castro on 11/22, the Kennedys would given a peaceful solution one last shot. However, as Dean Rusk told Vanity Fair when he confirmed the coup to them in 1994, the Kennedys were "playing with fire" in pursuing both peace and a coup at the same time.

Since it took me so long to answers this first batch of questions, here are some answers to questions others have mentioned (not necessarily from the Forum, but also places like Amazon):

1. Thom Hartmann is not, and never has been a CIA agent or asset. He’s been a volunteer for decades with Salem International, a relief organization, and his work for them takes him all over the world (at his own expense). Anyone who listens to Thom’s radio show, syndicated by Air America - or read Thom’s many books - knows he’s taken the CIA to task many times. I’m not a CIA agent either. The only government agency I’ve ever worked for was as Director of an outpatient counseling center for juvenile delinquents and their families, for the State of Georgia, in the 1970s and early 1980s.

2. As I say in the book, I’m not related to a New York Times reporter named Martin Waldron, whose November 1966 letter to the New Orleans Police Department about Ferrie and Marcello may have sparked the Garrison investigation (and the December 1966 questioning of David Ferrie). I’ve never even met or talked to Martin Waldron, and I found the copy of the letter at Jim Lesar’s AARC, in a Garrison file (apparently, the New Orleans Police gave a copy of the letter to Garrison or one of his men.)

I look forward to answering more questions, and I’d like to thank John Simkin for the opportunity. And, I’d like to encourage everyone to pull together to get the over one million CIA files released, and help get justice for ex-Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden.

Mr. Waldron, thanks for all of the information!

You wrote:

While Cubela was not very close to Castro, or considered part of his inner circle by most experts, the Case Officer did admit Cubela was very close to one very high Cuba official, saying - if I recall correctly - Cubela "was intimate with Che Guevara.")

Of course, there are two different meanings of the word "intimate".

I believe I read in one of a. j. weberman's nodules that there was a report that Cubela and Che were lovers.

Are you aware of anything to support that proposition? Or are you aware if either Cubela or Che were either homosexual or bisexual?

CIA Code Name for Kennedy Administration: ODYOKE.

Anyone ever heard that before?

Yes Tim, we have.... as used in Lamar's documents it refers to the head of the US government, the decision makers, Wash DC i.e. the Kennedy administration.

It may also have been used at other times to refer to other administrations... but it clearly relates to the President and his administration. Its a lot more accurate than Hoovers SOG...

-- Larry

One can read a certain attitude into that choice. As with CIA's cryptonym for the FBI: ODENVY

The story of Veciana seeing his CIA handler, code-named "Bishop," meeting with Oswald in Dallas in the later summer of 1963 is well-documented. The HSCA's attempts at positively identifying Bishop as David Atlee Phillips is also well-documented. What I have not been aware of is that Veciana ever broke his silence and positively made the identification that Bishop was indeed David Phillips. So my question is: am I correct in understanding from Ultimate Sacrifice that Veciana identified Bishop as Phillips to the authors? This question is based on the assertion on page 242: "Veciana told us that Oswald and Phillips were discussing what 'we can do to kill Castro.'"

T.C.

Several writers and commentators have made reference to an 11/25/63 FBI interview with Ferrie's friend Layton Martens, and Martens' assertion that he was told by Ferrie's lawyer and employer G. Wray Gill that Ferrie's library card had been found on Oswald when he was arrested. This is a reference to Commission Document 75. Let us follow the assertion through the other pages of the document.

Martens told the FBI that Gill had stopped by Ferrie's apartment at about 1:00pm on 11/24/63, and that "Gill stated that he had gotten word that Lee Oswald, when he was picked up, had been carrying a library card with David Ferrie's name on it."

When the FBI asked Gill about this, he replied that he had spoken to a man named Hardy Davis, who "informed him that he had learned through hearsay when Oswald was arrested by the Police Department in Dallas, Texas, he had in his posession a library card of David Ferrie."

The FBI then questioned Hardy Davis, who said that he had spoken to Jack Martin who "told Davis that (a) television program had reported that the library card of David Ferrie had been found in the posession of Oswald in Dallas, Texas upon the latter's arrest."

This led the FBI to Jack Martin, who told the agents that "he had several phone conversations with Hardy Davis...regarding a television program which mentioned the possibility that David Ferrie was associated with Lee Harvey Oswald in the Civil Air Patrol, and Martin and Davis may have come to the conclusion that Oswald had used or carried Ferrie's library card."

Let us reverse this evidence trail and follow it forward: Jack Martin came to the conclusion that Ferrie's library card had been found in Oswald's posession, and he told this to Hardy Davis. Davis repeated this assertion to G. Wray Gill. Gill repeated the information to Layton Martens.

While there were references on New Orleans TV stations that Oswald may have served under Ferrie in the Civil Air Patrol, there is no record of any reference to Oswald having Ferrie's library card. Could Jack Martin have made the story up? Martin had briefly been a friend of Ferrie's but had developed a grudge after Ferrie threw him out of Gill's office the previous May. Over the years Martin gave numerous statements to investigators about Ferrie which are filled with demonstrably erroneous information. By any measure, Martin had a peculiar background. One investigator wrote that "Martin is considered extremely unreliable and on several occasions this man has himself been involved in matters which bordered on extortion." Could these words have been written as part of a cover-up/smear? Not likely - they were written nearly a year before the assassination.

When Ferrie was questioned by the FBI, Ferrie said that "he has never loaned his library card to Lee Harvey Oswald or any other person at any time." It is not unreasonable to speculate that the FBI's reason for asking this question was the assertion of Jack Martin, reported to the Bureau by Martens, Gill, Davis and Martin himself. The Secret Service may have obtained this information from the FBI.

After Ferrie's 1967 death, Oswald's landlady and a former neighbor told Jim Garrison's investigators that Ferrie had visited them and inquired about a library card. (The landlady said Ferrie's visit was on the night of the assassination, but his whereabouts during that evening are accounted for.) Presumably, Ferrie did visit the women a few days later in response to the allegation made by Jack Martin.

Mr. Waldron:

Do you believe LBJ was informed about AMBLOOD while he was VEEP?

Did you find any documents relating to when it was cancelled?

1. While I had not heard of it, I am not surprised that there was something called a secret anti-Castro activity called AMWORLD, either for a CIA operation or a broader government wide operation [such as Mongoose] during 1963. When I was researching by book, the Castro Obsession, I was a bit puzzled by the fact that the various covert activities that year - with the exception of AMLASH/Cubela; and AMTRUNK - did not have a code name; they included Oliva's consolidation of all Cubans into a single unit in the US Army; Artime's activities in Central America Hinckle and Turner say it was called Second Naval Guerrilla but both Rafael Quintero and Sam Halpern told me they never heard of any such thing]; Commandos Mambises, and the hit and run sabotage operation run by JMWAVE out of Miami, etc., all of which I describe in detail in my book. But reading some of the Ultimate Sacrifice excerpts etc., it is clear to me that they are talking about some of the same things.

2. It’s no secret that Cyrus Vance was leading a good bit of the effort although the entire anti-Castro operation according to documents was overseen the State Department’s Coordinator of Cuban Affairs, beginning in early January 1963. That job initially was held by Sterling Cottrell who was succeeded by John Crimmins.

3. Alexander Haig, in his book, INNER CIRCLES [page 109] identifies "Cyrus Vance as the executive agent for the entire federal government in dealing with Cuba and the threat the Castro's regime posed to the Western Hemisphere. This included responsibility for coordinating a secret war against Cuba that encompassed sabotage, commando raises, and propaganda and other clandestine activities." That could have been AMWORLD.

4. I do not believe, however, there was a Dec. 1, 1963 date scheduled for an invasion of Cuba nor do I believe - as indicated by what I have read of Waldron's account - that the Mafia was involved in this effort.

5. The authors say the pledge against an invasion never went into effect because Castro refused on-site inspections of the missile withdrawals. Whether the no-invasion pledge was valid or not is still an open question. It came up again in the early 1970s during the Nixon administration when the Soviets were sending nuclear powered submarines to Cienfuegos for refueling and, to the best of my recollection, the no invasion pledge was still in dispute. Minutes of a Nov. 12, 1962, Excom meeting, notes that: “The President commented that an assurance covering invasion does not ban covert actions or an economic blockade or tie our hands completely. We can’t give the impression that Castro is home free.” I don’t think there is any documentation that shows Kennedy considered the pledge null and void. Subsequent documents make it clear that U2 inspection overflights were ongoing to verify missile withdrawal, with Washington concerned a U2 might be downed by a SAM missile. As outlined by the authors, the no-invasion pledge would not have applied in any event, if there was a coup in Cuba and the coup leaders asked for international help.

6. It sounds like a cop-out to me where the authors say they know, but won’t identify, the so-called “coup leader.” The excuse about violating national security laws at this late date is pretty lame. I doubt that anyone would prosecute them.

7. Another graph says they have discovered a Dec. 10, 1963, cable sent to the CIA director, and attributed to a “western diplomat”, reporting “Che Guevara was alleged to be under house arrest for plotting to overthrow Castro.” Having worked at the Miami Herald’s Latin staff for many years, I can’t tell you how many similar unfounded rumors - from such sources - kept popping up, ranging from Castro’s assassination to Guevara’s disappearance. If Guevara had been under house arrest for plotting to overthrow Castro, he never would have been allowed to leave Cuba.

8. They say Cy Vance was the “only man” who knew everything about this plot besides Robert Kennedy, and that Vance “was one of the few military leaders who knew the full scope of C-Day while the plan was active.” The reason that Vance drafted the plan - if he did - is because under a new June 19, 1963, multi-agency covert action program against Cuba, Vance, as Secretary of the Army, was designated by President Kennedy as “the executive agent for the entire federal government in dealing with Cuba [Al Haig, Inner Circles, page 109].

9. Among others were generals, Max Taylor, Joe Carroll, etc. along with John McCone, Richard Helms, Des Fitzgerald and key field operatives such as David Morales and Dave Phillips. They say there is no evidence that J. Edgar Hoover knew about it. Why should Hoover know? He didn’t know anything about any of the other covert operations against Cuba either, Bay of Pigs, Mongoose, etc. Others likely to have known about such a plan were Joe Califano [Vance’s aide] and Alexander Haig, then an Army colonel, both actively involved in the anti-Castro efforts. Both are still alive, both have written memoirs. I interviewed Haig at his home in West Palm Beach for my own book and we discussed Cuba extensively. He gave no indication such a plan existed. Califano refused several interview requests, but he does deal with Cuba in a chapter in his 2004 book and reiterates again that both he and LBJ think Castro had a hand in the assassination.

10. I find it difficult to believe that if the coup plan as it is described by the authors existed, that we would not have heard of it previously. Several of the people listed above have written memoirs, i.e, Helms, Phillips, etc. and make no mention of it, even though they discuss other such covert operations. The authors also error in saying that the CIA planed to assassinate Castro began in 1959 under Vice President Nixon. I also dispute that the CIA – without telling the Kennedys – was continuing to work with the Mafia on plot against Castro in the fall of 1963. I don’t believe that. And there is certainly no indication of that in either the Church committee report or the CIA IG’S 1967 report on plots to assassinate Castro. In fact, the Church Committee says explicitly that: “the first action against the life of a Cuban leader sponsored by the CIA” occurred in July 1960.

11. It is also odd, that the authors don’t mention Sam Giancani, who was involved with the CIA in assassination plots against Castro. There were two CIA/Mafia plots to assassinate Castro, one originated with Richard Bissell [or Sheffield Edwards, depending on who you believe] in August 1960; Robert Kennedy, according to declassified documents, became aware of it in May 1962 when he was alerted by Hoover that he had evidence Giancani’s girlfriend was sleeping with the President. Bobby then got a briefing from Lawrence Houston, the CIA's general consul, and Sheffield Edwards, the CIA’S security chief on the first Mafia-CIA attempt against Castro. The only other recorded Mafia-CIA attempt to assassinate Castro was underway at the same time – unknown to Bobby Kennedy – this time under the direction of Bill Harvey, head of Task Force W, the CIA component of Operation Mongoose. It was essentially a resurrection of the failed earlier Mafia plot.

12. The authors also mention Operation Amtrunk as being a CIA operation which looked for disaffected Cuban military officers. It was a CIA operation, but one that was forced on the CIA. The operation originated – as shown in declassified documents in my possession - with two Miamians exiled from Cuba, George Volsky. Their codename for it was Operation Leonardo. Logistical support for it was essentially forced on the CIA by the Kennedy White House, through the influence of NYTimes correspondent Tad Szulc, a close friend of Volsky’s.

13. It appears the authors rely heavily on Enrique Ruiz-Williams. While he was very close to Bobby Kennedy, I think he was less important the he led the authors to believe and not nearly as important – or any closer to – Bobby Kennedy than Erneido Oliva [who is not even indexed in the book. Oliva was designated by President Kennedy [an article appeared in the NYTimes] as the representative of the Bay of Pigs Brigade. His liaison at the Pentagon was Al Haig.

14. My own conclusion is that AMWORLD – if that is the codename for the operation – was one among many potential plans to get rid of Castro and that it was “a just in case” plan, that may or may not have been tied in with AMLASH [Rolando Cubela] and perhaps Manuel Artime and Erneido Oliva, both captured at the Bay of Pigs, who became very close to Bobby Kennedy. As noted in my own book [see pages 187-188], and as related to me by Oliva, he and Artime [Ruiz-Williams was not present] met in mid-January 1963 with Bobby Kennedy – less than a month after they had been released from Cuban prisoners - they met Kennedy at his home in Hickory Hill, Virgina. There, according to Oliva, he outlined a new anti-Castro plan to them. Artime would set up guerrilla camps in Central America and Oliva would integrate all the Cubans in the US military into a single unit and the two projects would eventually mesh.

15. In their excerpts summary, the authors express amazement at one point that “a check of newspaper files from the summer and fall of 1963 uncovered a few articles confirming that there had been activity by Kennedy-backed Cuban exiles in Central America at the time.” No wonder, because by then, Artime’s deputy, Rafael Quintero had been traveling back and forth to Costa Rica and Nicaragua arranging to set up the Artime camps with about 300 recruits and it had already started to get attention in the Miami newspapers.

16. I have a series of lengthy declassified documents obtained at the LBJ Library in Austin, prepared in advance of a Dec. 19, 1963, briefing for LBJ Cuba, including a 22-page draft document dated Dec. 15, 1963 that reviews “Current Cuba Policy.” It starts out by noting that: “The bare minimum objective of our police is a Cuba which poses no threat to its neighbors and which is not a Soviet satellite. In moving towards this objective we have rejected the options of unprovoked U.S. military intervention in Cuba and of an effective, total blockade around Cuba – primarily because they would risk another US/USSR confrontation. Instead, we are engaged in a variety of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral measures, both defensive and offensive, which stop short of these drastic measures.”

MY OWN COMMENT: It hardly seems likely that such a memorandum for the president would be written two weeks after an alleged invasion was scheduled without any mention of it.

17. Finally, I close with an email exchange with Oliva on March 28, 2000, as a followup to an interview I had with him earlier that month in Washington.

Q – Did anyone else attend the January 1963 meeting at Hickory Hill in addition to Bobby Kennedy, Artime and yourself?

A – No one else was present during that particular meeting with Bobby Kennedy. However, the information I provided to you can be easily corroborated. Artime spent more than six million dollars in Central America with its paramilitary operations and I was, until the end of the program, in charge of the military side as Alexander Haig states in his Inner Circle book.

Q – What exactly did Bobby Kennedy tell you other than they were going to fund the Artime program with $6 million and create the Cuban unit in the U.S. military?

A – That was the main topic of our conversation?

Q – Did he at anytime indicate that it would eventually lead to Castro’s overthrow? And, if so, by invasion or a joint operation between the Cuban unit and Artime’s group?

A – At that time it was not discussed any invasion of Cuba. Only that the two programs would eventually join forces to facilitate the liberation of Cuba. How? I never asked that, but the commitment on my program was open to the public to see. I have in my possession many clippings of interviews I granted while training at Fort Benning and Fort Sill. In those interviews my expectations and understanding of the training provided by the US Army, Navy and Air Force.

Q – You said you finished your plan – requested in September (1963) – for the Cuban unit in December whey they told you it was no longer needed. Can you tell me if the plan contemplated an invasion?

A – As stated before, no.

Q – What exactly was Artime’s group supposed to accomplish?

A – By attacking targets of opportunity [in Cuba], infiltrating personnel to reorganize the underground in Cuba, he would have created the favorable conditions for a larger military action against Castro.

All this, of course, after the famous – or infamous – K-K [Kennedy-Khrushchev/NO INVASION] pact.

Lamar, are you aware of this document (you don't quote it in Ultimate Sacrifice):

Anthony Summers and Fabian Escalante, Cuban Officials and JFK Historians Conference (7th December, 1995)

Anthony Summers: There is quite a lot of work being done in the last year or two that whatever the Kennedy administration was doing in conversations through Attwood and Colonel Lechuga, at the same time Robert Kennedy - and presumably the President too - was personally behind a major effort that envisioned the overthrow of Castro in the fall of 1963. Which would involve an internal coup with the death of Castro. After that, massive American backing for which Kennedy's perceived as being (Cuban) democrats as opposed to being right-wing extremists.

I asked Dean Rusk about this, shortly before his death a year or so before. And he told me, yes he learned about the plans for such a coup. They were indeed backed by JFK and understood by his brother and were in charge of it. That he learned of this in 1964 during meetings of the National Security Council. And what can one make of this? One is talking about not a double track, but a double cross? If the Kennedy's were talking peace on the one hand and a full 1963 coup on the other? He said, yes but they did this all the time. And he found that not surprising. He said the Kennedy's work that way. And he said rather cynically, do governments everywhere. In your research in Cuba, have Mr. Escalante and Lechuga gotten a similar picture of double-track, double-cross?

Fabian Escalante: Look, I'm going to answer very briefly. In 1963 McGeorge Bundy designed this new approach towards Cuba. It involved a double track or multiple track. This appeared in documents in the Church Committee. One of the tracks was to strengthen the blockade against Cuba, political pressure, the isolation of Cuba from the continent and also from Western Europe. To destroy through sabotage and external operations all the energy and industrial infrastructure in the country. In 1963 there were two major plans of sabotage proved against Cuba. Two paths, with one objective. To force Cuba to sit down at the negotiating table, but under very disadvantaged circumstances. That's why we never really heard what the possible American agenda would be. We never heard anything... That's why the Cuban government took its time to deeply study the proposal put forth by Attwood.

What could they possible been trying to do by trying to start a dialogue. So they took their time. Here's what happened according to our judgement. The hawks never supported, they didn't understand this strategy, didn't agree. Anything that didn't agree with a new invasion of Cuba, they didn't agree with. We think the hawks felt themselves betrayed. According to our judgement there were two strategies to be followed by the US: (1) from the administration; (2) and one from the CIA, the Cuban exiles, and the Mafia - and even they had their own independent objectives. Around that on the part of this latter group, there developed this need to assassinate Kennedy. It seemed to them that Kennedy was not in agreement to the new invasion. That's our hypothesis.

Anthony Summers: Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The information that's been coming out, new scholarship that Robert Kennedy personally in those weeks heading up to November 22, in the weeks leading up, was behind a detailed plan for the killing, overthrow of Castro, the killing of Raul, key leaders of the revolution. To be followed by massive American support for take over in Cuba by the so-called Cuban democrats. This was a real plan in the works. This is different from, maybe connected with but very specific and different from conversation.

It has occurred to me that if the Ultimate Sacrifice analysis of the Chicago and Tampa assassination plots is correct, neither of the Kennedy brothers would have allowed Jackie to be riding in an open limo through Dallas only days later. This is especially true considering that Jackie hadn't motorcaded with the President since the Inauguration Day Parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course, if these were staged attempts, developing the Operation Northwoods pretext for an invasion of Cuba, then consideration for Tosh Plumlee's assertion of an abort mission (to abort the fake attempt) comes into play.

T.C.

Bill Kelly has posted an article on the Forum about the possibility of obtaining a grand jury in order to investigate the assassination of JFK.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5634

I have started a thread where I have asked researchers to put forward evidence that would justify the case being reopened.

As a result of your own research, what evidence is currently available that suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the only one responsible for killing JFK?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5659

Self-destructing bombshell
Did the mob kill JFK? Holes riddle book's claim

http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs....ves/CAT=Lives04

MICHAEL GRANBERRY
The Dallas Morning News

"The year 2000 will see men still arguing about the president's death." -- journalist Harrison Salisbury in 1964

Having uttered those words more than 40 years ago, Salisbury, who died in 1993, had no way of knowing how stunningly right he would be. Who killed President John F. Kennedy and why has become so much more than "arguing." It's a raging inferno of international debate and always has been.

Dallas' darkest moment, the assassination on Elm Street, has fueled thousands of inquiries. They range from the daringly noble to the comically idiotic, and every point in between. A lull of sorts occurred after Gerald Posner's riveting 1993 account, "Case Closed," the best book by far supporting the Warren Commission's conclusion that a sad, deranged loner named Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president.

The lull recently screeched to a halt with the release of "Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK" (Carroll & Graf, $33).

Authors Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann contend that the Mafia killed Kennedy, while insisting -- though falling far short of proving -- that there is so much more to the story.

"Ultimate Sacrifice" weighs in at 904 pages and 2,700 footnotes and is, say the authors, the carefully tended product of 17 years of research and interviews. The book could not have been written, they say, without access to thousands of documents freed up by the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, which was passed into law after the public outcry surrounding Oliver Stone's 1991 pro-conspiracy manifesto, "JFK."

"Ultimate Sacrifice" is not without virtues; much of it is compelling, often breathless reading. The book's thesis that three Mafia chieftains -- Santo Trafficante of Tampa, Fla.; Carlos Marcello of New Orleans (and, by extension, Dallas); and Johnny Rosselli of Chicago -- engineered the president's slaying as retribution for the dogged pursuit of their activities by the president's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, is nothing new.

What is new is the book's bombshell, that the Mafia believed it could get away with the president's assassination because it had inside knowledge of the Kennedys' dark secret -- that, on Dec. 1, 1963 (nine days after JFK came to Dallas), they would overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in a violent coup and replace him with a pro-U.S. puppet regime.

The authors' logic: The assassination would render U.S. officials powerless in conducting an investigation for fear of jeopardizing national security and risking a scarier second act of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which had taken the U.S. and Cuba's Marxist benefactor, the Soviet Union, to the brink of nuclear war. How did the mob know about the Cuban plot? They had been told by the CIA, the authors say.

Do the writers prove their case? Not by a long shot. Further eroding their credibility is the fact that they call the Cuban coup plot "C-Day" -- "a name entirely of our own invention."

Which is not to say the book isn't entertaining. They contend that Trafficante had tried to assassinate President Kennedy in Tampa four days before his visit to Dallas. They even name a "patsy" who they say would have taken the fall: a Cuban named Gilberto Policarpo Lopez.

They also quote former Kennedy aide Kenneth O'Donnell, who was in the motorcade and who told Tip O'Neill, former speaker of the House, in 1968 that "he had heard two shots" from the grassy knoll. They also quote former Kennedy aide Dave Powers, who was in the motorcade and who spoke to the authors before his death in 1998, that he felt they were "riding into an ambush" because of shots from the grassy knoll and that he was pressured to change his story by the Warren Commission.

But this is just one of the problems with this book. Powers never testified before the Warren Commission. So when was he pressured?

"Ultimate Sacrifice" pins much of its thesis on interviews with former Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Enrique "Harry" Ruiz-Williams, a veteran of the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Ruiz-Williams was believed to be Robert Kennedy's closest friend and ally in the Cuban exile community. (Both men have since died.)

Rusk had long been considered a fierce loyalist of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who succeeded President Kennedy. Rusk was apparently no fan of either Kennedy, Bobby in particular.

As for Ruiz-Williams, he may have wanted, with all his heart, for such a coup to take place. But neither he nor the authors do an adequate job of convincing the reader that such a bold (crazy?) political and military stroke was really going to happen.

Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, has given recent interviews claiming not to know of any such plot and rejecting any notion that such a plan was in the works. If it was, why would the president never bother to tell McNamara, one of his closest aides? He hasn't exactly lacked for candor in recent years, as anyone who saw the documentary "The Fog of War" can tell you.

But "Ultimate Sacrifice" has deeper problems. There exists an overriding flaw that bedevils all pro-conspiracy tales, one the authors never come close to answering: Why would any band of conspirators, hoping to gun down the president of the United States, put so much faith and trust in the likes of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby -- Ruby in particular?

The last statement seems odd indeed.

First, "Ultimate Sacrifice" never argues that the Mafia used LHO as a part of the plot. He was the "patsy" as he himself proclaimed.

Second, why would the mafia entrust someone the likes of Ruby to kill LHO? Well, he succeeded, did he not, so the trust was well-placed. Moreover, the latter quote makes one wonder whether the reviewer even read the entire book, which details Ruby's gun-running in the 1950s and his involvement in a 1959 plot to kill Castro. The book also details Ruby's involvement in the drug trade.

Ruby was apparently far more than the somewhat dumb strip club operator portrayed in the media.

The review's strange reference to the Mafia's reliance on Ruby--and its statement that the book does not come close to answering why the Mafia would involve Ruby-- really makes me wonder whether the reviewer read the book in its entirety.

The mainstream idea of a Mafia hitman is a suave, silent killer, not some puffy nightvclub owner.

In truth, Ruby was a perfect man for the job.

Paul Comstock interviewed Lamar Waldron in the California Literary Review (February 13, 2006)

http://www.calitreview.com/Interviews/waldron_8024.htm

So much has been written about JFK's assassination - what in your book is new?

A tremendous amount. With the help of almost two dozen people who worked with John and Robert Kennedy--backed up by thousands of documents in the National Archives--we discovered that JFK and his brother had a never-before-revealed plan to stage a coup against Castro on December 1, 1963. The CIA's code-name for their part of the plan--AMWORLD--has never appeared in print before, and was withheld from the Warren Commission and later Congressional investigating committees. As part of the coup plan, in the days and weeks before Dallas, Robert Kennedy even had a top secret committee making plans for dealing with the possible "assassination of American officials," in case Castro found out about the coup plan and tried to retaliate.

However, the Kennedy's coup plan was infiltrated by three powerful Mafia bosses being targeted by Attorney General Robert Kennedy: Johnny Rosselli of the Chicago Mafia, Tampa godfather Santo Trafficante, and Carlos Marcello (godfather of Louisiana and east Texas). The Mafia dons used parts of the secret coup plan to try and assassinate JFK first in Chicago (on 11-2-63), then in Tampa (on 11-18-63, an attempt never revealed before), and finally in Dallas. By planting evidence implicating Castro, the mob bosses prevented Robert Kennedy and other key officials from conducting a thorough investigation, in order to protect the coup plan and prevent nuclear confrontation with the Russians.

While it's been known since the early 1990s that Robert Kennedy eventually told close associates the Mafia was behind his brother's death, the book finally explains how the Mafia did it, presenting a huge amount of new information.

Can you tell us more about these two attempts on JFK’s life just prior to Dallas and their connection to November 22nd?

As we were told by Chicago Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden, they had uncovered a plot by four men to kill JFK during his Chicago motorcade planned for November 2, 1963. An ex-Marine (with several recent parallels to Oswald) was arrested, but the four men remained at large. So, JFK had to cancel his motorcade at the last minute, even as people were lining the motorcade route. Pierre Salinger told us about the two different excuses he gave for the cancellation. In addition, Salinger--who began his work for the Kennedys as a Mafia investigator--revealed that Jack Ruby had been in Chicago a week prior to the motorcade, where he had received $7,000 from someone who worked for an associate of Trafficante and Marcello. Salinger's revelation was confirmed by two eye-witnesses and FBI reports in the National Archives.

The Tampa attempt had more than a dozen parallels to JFK's assassination in Dallas, including a male suspect in his early twenties linked to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The Police and Secret Service warned JFK about the threat, but JFK bravely went ahead with the motorcade anyway, because of an important speech about Cuba he had to give in Miami that night, a speech that was part of the coup plan.

No news reports about the Tampa threat appeared while JFK was alive--just a tiny article the day after this death; by the following day the Tampa Chief of Police and Secret Service weren't talking to the press about it. On the very day Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden went to Washington to tell Warren Commission staff about the Tampa and Chicago attempts, and other Secret Service laxity, he was framed by the Chicago Mafia and arrested. He was sent to prison for six years, even though his main accuser later admitted committing perjury against Bolden. The book finally explains exactly who framed Bolden, and why.

Why did the three Mafia godfathers want to assassinate JFK?

Because Robert Kennedy was waging the biggest war against organized crime that America has ever seen, and the Mafia families of Chicago, Tampa, and Louisiana were under incredible pressure. Rosselli's boss was under "lockstep surveillance" by the FBI, and even Trafficante's family members were being prosecuted. Marcello himself was put on trial by Robert Kennedy's prosecutors the day before the Chicago attempt. Marcello bribed a key juror to ensure his acquittal, which Marcello timed for 11-22-63, when JFK was shot in Dallas. Marcello had a big celebration that afternoon and the only other known celebration after JFK's death was in Tampa, were Trafficante publicly toasted JFK's murder at the very restaurant where JFK had given a speech, just four days earlier.

The Kennedys had worked hard to keep the Mafia from having a role in their coup plan, and JFK's plans for a democratic government in Cuba after the coup would have kept the Mafia from returning to reopen their casinos there. So, the Mafia dons had to kill JFK before December 1, 1963, because only the secrecy surrounding the coup plan could prevent a thorough, public investigation that could have exposed their involvement.

Walk us through exactly what transpired in Dealy Plaza. Where did the shots come from and who were the shooters?

Very briefly: There is much evidence that Oswald was in the lunchroom of the Texas School Book Depository at the time of the shooting. Two men were seen behind the fence on the "grassy knoll." Other witnesses saw two men on the sixth floor of the Depository.

Riding in the limo directly behind JFK's were his two closest Presidential Aides, Dave Powers and Kenneth O'Donnell. As Powers told my co-author Thom Hartmann, both men heard--and Powers saw--shots from the grassy knoll. That explains why JFK's limo slowed at the sound of the first shot from the front, because they thought they were riding into an ambush. Powers and O'Donnell confirmed the shots from the knoll to former House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who wrote about it in his autobiography, Man of the House. Our book also explains why Powers and O'Donnell were pressured to alter their Warren Commission testimony "for the good of the country," and which current US Senator was involved with that.

The book deals with evidence indicating that Mafioso present in Dealy Plaza that day could have included Johnny Rosselli, Chicago Mafia hitman Charles Nicoletti, French assassin Michel Victor Mertz, and a CIA operative working on the Kennedys' coup plan who was (unknown to the Kennedys) also working for the Mafia.

As you state in your book, there are many credible witnesses who believe shots were fired from the grassy knoll and it certainly looks on the Zapruder film that Kennedy has been shot from the front, but isn’t the autopsy of President Kennedy proof that the bullet entered the rear of his skull? The entry wound on the back of his head was small, but the exit wound on the right side of his head was nearly six inches.

Many distinguished experts disagree with what you've just stated, including Dr. Cyril Wecht, one of the country's leading forensic pathologists. Remember that what is visible in the remaining photographs doesn't sometimes match what is in the surviving x-rays--and there is considerable testimony that photos and x-rays were taken that are not part of the evidence today. Plus, crucial evidence, like JFK's brain, disappeared once it was in the custody of Robert Kennedy.

Entire books have been written about the autopsy, so I won't try to cover everything here. Suffice it to say that the wound descriptions by the Dallas doctors didn't sometimes match those of the autopsy physicians at Bethesda, and vice versa. For example, in Dallas the small wound in JFK's throat was described as an entrance wound. Because they made a neat tracheotomy incision over the wound, the doctors at Bethesda didn't even realize it was a bullet wound. JFK's back wound was almost six inches below the base of his neck--making it impossible for a bullet coming down from the steep angle of the sixth floor of the Book Depository to have entered there and emerged many inches higher, from the front of JFK's throat. (where it would have been heading up, only to have to head down again to hit Gov. Connolly--that's just one reason the pristine bullet is called the "magic bullet").

In addition, new information declassified from the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the JFK Assassination Records Review Board casts further doubt on the Warren Commission theory of JFK's wounds.

We present new information in the book, based on interviews with two people at Bethesda during the autopsy, including David Powers, a JFK aide who was also one of the closest eye-witnesses to the assassination.

Much evidence we cite shows that Robert Kennedy essentially controlled JFK's autopsy. After the autopsy, control of JFK's body was turned over to two officials who had been working with Robert Kennedy on covert Cuban operations. Even JFK's personal physician, Admiral Burkley--the only doctor present in both Dallas and Bethesda--believed JFK was killed as a result of a conspiracy.

What were Oswald’s actions from the time of the assassination until he was arrested?

After reviewing all the evidence as part of seventeen years of research, we were stuck by how much of the conventional Warren Commission story is contradicted by other evidence, including earlier statements by many of their key witnesses. Thus, Oswald's movements from shortly after the assassination until he returned to his rooming house can't be pinned down with certainty.

While Oswald was in his rooming house, a police car pulled up, honked its horn, then pulled away. A short time later, Oswald walked out of the rooming house.

The Warren Commission says then that Oswald was walking (since he didn't drive or own a car) on a quiet street, when a patrolman drove up to him. According to the official story, the crazed ex-serviceman pulled out a pistol, shot the patrolman and fled. As our book points out for the first time, that exact scene (involving an ex-serviceman) is in a movie that Johnny Rosselli produced (uncredited, but confirmed by court documents) in 1948, called "He Walked by Night."

Oswald next shows up at the Texas Theater, where he was arrested, though again, much evidence contradicts the conventional version of events. We present evidence (including some from secret Warren Commission memos not included in their final report) that Oswald thought he was going to Mexico City, on a "mission" that involved getting into Cuba on a mission in support of upcoming US action against Cuba. The theater was where Oswald had been told he would meet his contact.

The book presents a huge amount of evidence that Oswald was a low-level asset for a US intelligence agency, and not a communist. For example, the Warren Commission claimed Oswald was a Marxist as teenager, but how many communist teenagers join the Civil Air Patrol? And not only join the US Marines, but try to join before he's even old enough? We uncovered new information showing that Oswald was under 'tight" surveillance by Naval Intelligence from the time he returned to the US from Russia. Oswald's role as an intelligence asset explains why US authorities weren't concerned when Oswald--a seeming former defector with a Russian wife--got a job in Dallas at a firm that prepared material for maps created from U-2 spy plane photos, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Oswald had been looking for work in Dallas in October of ’63 and found the job at the School Book Depository through a friend of his wife’s. He started work there October 16th. It doesn’t sound like an active plot to kill the President is in place at that time (Kennedy’s motorcade route had not yet been planned) and it also wouldn’t give much time for anyone to set him up as a patsy – creating a bogus snipers nest, etc.

That's a common misconception. JFK's long-rumored Dallas visit had finally been announced on Sept. 26--right before Oswald tried to go to Cuba via Mexico City. It was well known by Jack Ruby and others in Dallas that any major motorcade would go through Dealy Plaza along Main Street. It's not generally known, but 11-22-63 wasn't the first time JFK had been through Dealy Plaza in a motorcade--JFK had been there in 1960, during the campaign. (Of course, Oswald was in Russia at that time, but Ruby and the Marcello associates he worked for were in Dallas then.)

The mob bosses who'd been carefully planning to kill JFK had plenty of time make sure Oswald got a job near the motorcade route. In fact, Oswald applied for several jobs near and along the motorcade route.

It's important to note that around the same time Oswald moved to a new city (Dallas, from New Orleans) and got a new job, so did the ex-Marine arrested at the time of the 11/2/63 Chicago attempt against JFK and the young man linked to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee who was investigated by authorities after the 11/18/63 Tampa attempt to assassinate JFK.

Where does Ruby fit in to all of this? Why would he kill Oswald knowing that he would spend the rest of his life in prison or be sentenced to death?

Ruby was a long-time Mafia associate who was in desperate financial straits at the time. In addition, the book documents for the first time that Ruby (who ran guns to Cuba) had been part of the 1959 CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Ruby had also been an informant for the FBI at that time--and for other law enforcement agencies later--which would also insure the various agencies couldn't dig too deeply into Ruby's background or share key information with those investigating JFK's assassination. As if to drive the point home to authorities, even the pistol Ruby used to shoot Oswald came from Ruby's time in the first round of CIA-Mafia plots against Castro.

Ruby's job--in Chicago and probably Tampa, as well as Dallas--was to get a policeman to quickly kill the patsy, since Ruby had numerous friends in law enforcement. Failing to do that, Ruby had to do the job himself, though Congressional (and even Warren Commission) investigators felt he had the help of one or more policemen. One of them let Ruby know when Oswald was heading to the basement, the day he was shot.

Under Texas's "sudden passion" murder defense at the time, Ruby could have received as little as five years, and with good behavior, had to serve less than three years. Ruby's mob-linked lawyer chose not to use that defense, and instead used a bizarre "psycho-motor" defense that had never worked before.

But once Ruby’s in jail for life, and particularly after his diagnosis of cancer, what would prevent him from telling the truth about his role in the assassination?

One reason the Jewish Ruby had been able to work with the Mafia for so long was that he'd shown he could keep his mouth shut, even when it came to murder. Robert Kennedy wrote in his book "The Enemy Within" about a Mafia murder in 1939 that was important in forging a link between the Mafia and the Teamsters--and police records show that one of the mobsters who kept his mouth shut about that hit was Jack Ruby.

By 1963, Ruby was a long-trusted lower-level mob associate, part of a tight-knit Mafia heroin network that went through Dallas.

The night before the assassination, Ruby dined at the restaurant of a long-time Marcello associate. After Ruby's arrest, he was visited by the same Marcello associate. As we cite in the book from Warren Commission testimony, there are indications that the lives of Ruby's family (sister, brothers, their children) had been threatened, that Ruby had been told they could face death or torture if he didn't cooperate. One of the Chicago mobsters that framed Abraham Bolden was known for the same type of brutal torture murders that gave Ruby nightmares.

In addition, it's been said that for much of the time of Ruby's incarceration, Dealy Plaza was visible from Ruby's jail cell in Dallas. That's the ultimate reminder of what could happen to those who angered the Mafia, even a President. In the same way Ruby's close connections to hundreds of Dallas police made him valuable to the Mafia, Ruby knew that it would be just as easy for the Mafia to take action against Ruby, even in prison.

Ruby didn't have that much time to talk after his sudden diagnosis of cancer. Ruby had received a clean bill of health from a medical exam not long before. As I write in the book "Ruby had been diagnosed with cancer three days after winning a December 7, 1966 appeal for a new trail, to be held in Wichita Falls." Just over three weeks later, he was dead. By not talking after his cancer diagnosis, Ruby probably felt he had insured the safety of his family.

Will we ever find a definitive answer to this mystery? Is there anyone alive who was involved and could provide important information?

The answer to both questions is "yes" and "yes." NBC News and a government watchdog group, OMB Watch, both reported that well over a million documents remain secret, possibly until the year 2017. Everyone we have uncovered who was knowingly involved in JFK's death (less than a dozen) is either dead (most of those confessed to associates prior to their death), in prison, or has served time for a crime related to the assassination.

With so much still secret, and so much time having passed, further prosecutions for the assassination would be difficult if not impossible. That's why we recommend a South African-style truth commission about the assassination. They could review and release the vast majority of the million still-secret files, and take testimony from those who were involved.

We also feel strongly that Abraham Bolden--who had a sterling service record before his arrest and was America's first black Presidential Secret Service agent-- deserves to finally have his name cleared.

These questions have been taken from another thread on Ultimate Sacrifice:

Just to add my two cents. I also got the impression that the coup leader was Che Guevara. Slowly making my way through the book. It is so far an excellent read and comes highly reccommended by a few people I know. One thing that keeps repeating in my mind is that I can't believe the kennedys would take such a bold step clse enough to the election, surely they would wait for a second term to try anything with Cuba, given they were burned once.

I'm keeping an open mind with regard to the book, as I find it hard to believe that both Harry Williams and Dean Rusk are lying for some unknown reason.

No questions as of yet, but I'm sure I will find a few by the end!
Regards
John

Ironically, one of the more famous of the WWII "Merrill's Marauders", later retired as Director of the D.I.A. -- moreover, he is alive and well, and currently runs a small college. (Gerry Hemming)

I guess that would be Lt. Gen. Samual V. Wilson.

James

The current edition of Lobster includes a long review of Lamar Waldron’s Ultimate Sacrifice. Robin Ramsay accepts Waldron’s theory that after JFK rejected Lansdale’s Northwoods proposal, he developed a more subtle and more internationally defensible plot in which the US military would intervene in Cuba to “stabilize” it after an internal coup (organized by the US) had got rid of Castro.

Ramsay says: “There has been a great deal of debate about the Kennedys’ role in the CIA plots against Castro, with Kennedyphiles trying to fend off the charges of Camelot’s involvement. This argument should now cease. The authors show beyond dispute, in overwhelming, almost tedious detail that the Kennedys were planning a coup which would result in Castro’s death.”

Ramsay is less impressed with what he describes as “an extremely intricate version of the Mafia-dunnit thesis”. He suggests that there were in fact several plots against JFK and is not convinced that the Mafia story is the one that killed him. As Ramsay points out: “Of mob or Cuban hitmen on Dealey Plaza – or in Chicago or Tampa – there is no evidence.”

Dear Mr. Waldron,

A few questions:


- Have you found any witnesses to confirm the top secret Kennedy plan to overthrow Cuba?

“The Plan for a Coup in Cuba” (as it was titled in a memo for the Joint Chiefs of Staff) would include a “palace coup” to eliminate Castro, allowing a new Cuban “Provisional Government” to step into the power vacuum, and would be supported by a “full-scale invasion” of Cuba by the US military, if necessary."

If they were planning an all out invasion within a month, how could only a dozen people know about the plan?
Who wre these people besides the Kennedies?

- Who orchestrated the cover-up / Warren Commission and why?

- What is your opinion on Chauncey Holt and Charles Harrelson? Do you agree Harrelson worked for Marcello and Giancana?

- Why did your partner Thom Hartmann interview Holt once and never published anything about it?

- If you implicate Roselli, do you agree that Giancana was involved too?

- Are in your scenario Marcello, Roselli and Trafficante the puppetmasters who pulled all the strings on the operation?


Thank you,

Wim Dankbaar

1. More than one government agency was involved in the decision to make Commander Almeida's identity and work for JFK available to the public. So rather than focus on just the CIA (who was involved) or the ARRB, it would be more accurate for now to say that it was the decision of the US government. It is explained in more depth in the book's last chapter.

2. The US government's decision to make his identity known was make independent of - and before - publication of the hardback edition of Ultimate Sacrifice. Obviously, at the time the hardback was written and published, I assumed the US government wouldn't reveal it until 2017, which is why I worked so hard to not reveal his identity.

3. It was confirmed to me in writing in late November 2005 - just days after the hardback hit the stores - that his identity would remain available to the public. But it was March before it was clear there was no chance the decision would be reversed. That's when I decided to tell the full story in the trade paperback, and fully and as accurately as possible.

4. Castro has known about the official since 1990, when he disappeared for several years. That's when Kennedy associates first told us about the coup invasion plan (Dean Rusk, 1990) and all the details about the official's identity and work for the Kennedys (1992), because they thought he was dead. It surprised everyone when he turned out alive and back in the government in 1995. That's why - after Thom and I appeared on the History Channel and Vanity Fair in Nov. 1994 talking about the coup (and I wrote to the Review Board about it that same month) - we had to back off public appearances for years.

5. Apparently hoping his disappearance was for some other reason, the CIA tried an outreach to the official and his old allies in the Cuban military, in order to try to get them to stage a coup against Castro. This attempt even involved some AMWORLD veterans from 1963. However, it finally became clear to the CIA in 2001 that Fidel knew about Commander Almeida's work for JFK in 1963, and he was no longer in a position to help them even if he still wanted to.

6. So, it wasn't our decision to reveal his identity, and in fact, we argued against it. But once their decision was made, we felt the best thing we could do was to tell the whole story as accurately and fully as possible. As readers will see, the framework is already there in Ultimate Sacrifice. As a noted historian told me recently, at this point, wide publicity is Commander Almeida's best protection, so Fidel cannot take action against him in secret, as he did in 1990.

I think these questions may have been written by someone who hasn't read the entire book, but I'm happy to answer them.

Have you found any witnesses to confirm the top secret Kennedy plan to overthrow Cuba?

Several documented Kennedy associates, starting with Dean Rusk in 1990, as we detailed in the hardback of Ultimate Sacrifice. Keep in mind that Rusk confirmed the coup plan "on the record" to Vanity Fair, shortly before his death.

Also, we were told all the main information--and we talked about it on the record and on tape--before all the document releases of the mid to late 1990s (and documents are still trickling out). We talked about it in our ASK JFK conference presentations in 1993 and 1994 (both taped; anyone who has copies is welcome to circulate them for research purposes), to Vanity Fair 1994, on the History Channel in 1994, and in my written submission to the Review Board in November 1994. In that submission, I talked about a "Plan for a Coup in Cuba" in the Fall of 1963 and it was (I believe) two or three years before any documents from 1963 with that title where released. Also in that November 1994 submission, I told them for the first time about the Tampa assassination plot of November 18, 1994. As detailed in their Final Report, in January 1995, the Secret Service admitted at that time that they had just destroyed records for motorcades (which would include Tampa) in the weeks before Dallas.

After those publicity presentations in 1993 and 1994, Commander Almeida (Chief of the Cuban Army in Nov. 1963) resurfaced after having disappeared for several years (since 1990). Our sources had thought he was dead. Hence, Thom and had to pull back on our public efforts at that point.

"The Plan for a Coup in Cuba" (as it was titled in a memo for the Joint Chiefs of Staff) would include a "palace coup" to eliminate Castro, allowing a new Cuban "Provisional Government" to step into the power vacuum, and would be supported by a "full-scale invasion" of Cuba by the US military, if necessary." If they were planning an all out invasion within a month, how could only a dozen people know about the plan?

As the book explains, and the documents show, many of those doing the planning (like Rusk) in the summer and fall of 1963 were told the planning was just in case a high Cuban official was found who could stage the coup. Those official were also aware of efforts to try to locate a high official like that (AMTRUNK, CIA-DIA Task Force, Cubela, etc.). As Rusk told me in 1990, he only learned soon after JFK's death that the planning had been for real, that the Kennedys already had a very high Cuban official lined up, far more powerful than Cubela. Rusk said he wasn't angry that JFK and RFK had kept that from him, because it would have been impossible to keep secret otherwise. Rusk would have probably had to tell his subordinates; Rusk--like McNamara--was a high profile public official at the time, constantly talking to the press.

If an official like Rusk had been told months or even weeks earlier about Commander Almeida, he would have been in a difficult position with the press or his subordinates or even other Cabinet officials who hadn't been told, if one of them had asked about rumors that might have surfaced.

Plus, as I document in the book (a bit more fully in the new trade paperback, but it's also on the Mary Ferrell website), it appears that Rusk, McNamara, and some other Cabinet level officials would have been told just a few days prior to the coup. They likely would have been told that the US efforts to find someone to stage a coup had paid off, and all the plans they had all already signed off on were ready to be put to use.

Finally, keep in mind this was always supposed to appear to be a "palace coup" by Commander Almeida and his allies, with US forces being "invited" to help prevent a Soviet take-over. It was never supposed to be known the Kennedys had been working with Commander Almeida since May 1963 and were behind the whole thing. That would also protect the Kennedys if the coup had failed.

Who were these people besides the Kennedy brothers?

Some are named in the book. They would include Cyrus Vance, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Maxwell Taylor, CIA DIA Chief Carroll, McCone, Helms, FitzGerald, Enrique "Harry" Ruiz-Williams, and others.

Who orchestrated the cover-up / Warren Commission and why?

Again, as the book explains and documents prove, RFK was directing a secret committee in the weeks before Dallas (since September 1963), making plans for what to do if an American official was assassinated. Those plans weren't complete--and those doing the planning never imagined the "American official" might be JFK--but the thinking behind those plans no doubt influenced the actions of key officials after JFK's death. Starting with RFK, who was calling the shots at the autopsy. Remember, with RFK at Bethesda in the family suite (I believe on the 17th floor) were JFK aides Powers and O'Donnell, who had witnessed the shots from the grassy knoll.

McCone and Helms withheld info from the Warren Commission, as did RFK. Hoover wasn't officially part of the coup planning, but had no doubt picked up information about it from informants. LBJ had been out of the loop, and had to be quickly brought up to speed on the real coup plan, Cubela, AMTRUNK, and the CIA-Mafia plots. All knew that if the coup plan leaked, not only would in cost the life of America's ally, Commander Almeida, but just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, could have triggered another nuclear confrontation with the Soviets.

What is your opinion on Chauncey Holt and Charles Harrelson? Do you agree Harrelson worked for Marcello and Giancana?

I think court testimony and other evidence shows at least that Harrelson worked for an associate of Marcello, and knew an associate of Jack Ruby.

Why did your partner Thom Hartmann interview Holt once and never published anything about it?

We did not find his claims about being one of the tramps to be credible. And, he admitted forging documents to back up his claim.

What little he knew that wasn't widely available in various books, he could have obtained from obscure sources or other associates, like Col. Robert Bayard or Aldo Vera Serafin. There is no evidence Bayard or Serafin was involved in JFK's assassination, but each man did know someone who did have some knowledge (like Artime). Holt put himself at the scene of each of those murders, both of which I believe are still unsolved (Bayard's slaying was in Atlanta). But I take anything Holt ever said with a huge grain of salt.

If you implicate Rosselli, do you agree that Giancana was involved too?

I don't just implicate Rosselli, but I think he was one of the three main Mafia bosses behind the assassination.

However, Giancana--like Hoffa--was under heavily federal surveillance in the fall of 1963, and thus could have no active role. That would fall to Rosselli, who would neutralize surveillance while working on the CIA-Mafia plots with Morales and--as documents withheld from Congress show--Artime.

Regarding Giancana, despite the heavy surveillance, the FBI appears not to have known that the #2 man in the Cook County/Chicago sheriff's office--Richard Cain--was a "made" member of the Mafia actually working for Giancana. Cain was also a CIA asset, and had learned about the coup plan. Cain was also in position to frame Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden, to keep him from telling Warren Commission staff about Secret Service laxity, the Chicago attempt, and (most importantly) the Tampa attempt (which the Warren Commission had heard nothing).

Are in your scenario Marcello, Rosselli and Trafficante the puppetmasters who pulled all the strings on the operation?

Sure, for all the reasons I document in Section II of the hardback (and trade paperback); and they used the people I document in the book. In the CIA that went at least as high as David Morales, though there were others below his level. For those higher, the evidence is not nearly as clear and their is exculpatory evidence as well for those officials. For example, while it's clear McCone, FitzGerald, Helms, and Angleton were involved in the cover-up, so was RFK. Plus, Helms had withheld so much (ongoing CIA-Mafia plots, trying to use Cubela as an assassin, etc.) from McCone, he had to cover that up as well.

And, as I note in the book, it soon became clear to Helms that one or more of his people had been involved in the assassination, and he did take some action to deal with that.

On the other hand, I don't think Helms would have allowed all the incriminating documents that have been released to survive (especially after he became CIA Director) if he had been an active participant in JFK's assassination. As I note in the book, Helms was meeting with RFK as late as 1967 to discuss withholdinbg information from LBJ. Remember, there are a million CIA files related to the JFK assassination that have been identified, but that are still secret.

No matter what anyone believes about the assassination, I think we should all join together in demanding the release of those one million files as soon as possible, now that Almeida's identity no longer has to be protected. I'm certainly willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. And I'm confident the files will continue to support what Kennedy associates started telling me back in 1990, before any of the military or CIA or State Department files about the 1963 coup plans were released.

Likewise, I'm confident those files will contain additional information corroborating the innocence of Abraham Bolden.

Lamar Waldron has suggested members read the new introduction to Ultimate Sacrifice:

http://www.ultimatesacrificethebook.com/

He will then start answering our questions.

Having begun the updated trade paperback - through to about Chapter 56 or so - I am curious about a "stylistic" approach you've taken that doesn't seem to make complete sense to me, that I hope you will explain your reasons for.

The apparent contradiction lies in your willingness to identify Almeida, still presumably the #3 guy in Cuba (#2 if you count Raul as being on top, now that Fidel's infirm), and perhaps in as good or better a position as he may have been in 1963 to take over the government of Cuba once Fidel is no longer part of the picture ... and perhaps in some jeopardy now that he's been firmly identified whereas, even when he was "out of the picture" in 1990-95, then it may only have been a suspicion.

Meanwhile, you have chosen NOT to name a variety of people who have been identified over the years by various sources. One - the "gun dealer" - you say has "avoided publicity" over the years, so you will respect his (unstated?) desire to remain anonymous, even while someone can go to the end-noted source and find his identity.

Another - I don't remember where or whom - you again skirt around naming him while acknowledging that his identity is known to people - and will be known to anyone who researches the endnotes. In that case, you even went so far as to apparently cut out his name at the end of a quote to avoid naming him, along the lines of:

... and the document said "Bill had been discussing it with" him.

... leaving the "him" at the end dangling as if it might've otherwise said "with John Smith of the CIA" (or whatever), but you'd purposely omitted identifying Smith, even tho' he'd already been identified by someone else - or several other people - over the years, and may even be "generally" known except to the "uninitiated" in this case.

This is really the only major difficulty I've got with an otherwise very interesting and cohesive narrative, and a great source of frustration. What's up with that?

Ultimate Sacrifice
Reviewed by James DiEugenio

The first time I heard Lamar Waldron's name was through the auspices of Gus Russo. It was at the famous (or infamous) 1993 ASK Conference in Dallas. Now, after reading Waldron's book Ultimate Sacrifice (co-written with Thom Hartmann), I think it is relevant and enlightening to describe some of the things that happened back in 1993. Somehow, some way, Russo had been given control over a panel and had also invited some rather odd guests to attend, e.g. Ed Butler. As described elsewhere (see my article on Russo in Probe Vol. 6 No. 2 p. 12) it was at this conference that Russo basically reversed course from his earlier days and went over to the "Krazy Kid Oswald" camp. He had completed work on his shockingly one-sided PBS special and at this conference he and Mark Zaid began to forcefully divorce themselves from any kind of conspiracy angle. For example: The late Larry Harris had gotten several witnesses to arrange themselves in Dealey Plaza. Zaid went there and passed out leaflets attempting to discredit them. Zaid also helmed a panel on Oswald and he proclaimed that Oswald had no ties to the intelligence community. Zaid also was screaming at people who used the Zapruder film to advocate conspiracy: "You know more than Dr. Luis Alvarez, huh!" The conference culminated in a shouting match between Dr. Cyril Wecht and Russo over his loaded PBS special.

It was during this singular conference that I first heard Lamar Waldron speak. Apparently, Waldron was another one of Russo's invitees. On the panel he helmed, Russo had given Waldron a solid hour to expound on his "Project Freedom" thesis. This was an extraordinary amount of time: 20-25 minutes had been the outer limits before Waldron appeared. The talk Waldron gave has become one of the main concepts of the book under discussion. In retrospect, considering where Russo had been and was headed, I now fully understand why he was promoting Waldron. I recall listening to Waldron for about 10 minutes and being puzzled as to how the unconvincing hodge-podge he had assembled fit together. I walked out. When I returned he had fielded a question by mentioning that Robert Kennedy controlled JFK's autopsy at Bethesda. Even at that time this idea was dubious simply because of, among other things, Pierre Finck's testimony at the Clay Shaw trial. In light of that evidence I remember thinking: Lamar Waldron has an agenda the size of a football stadium.

After reading Ultimate Sacrifice I think I was wrong. Lamar Waldron has an agenda the size of the Grand Canyon. I can also see why Waldron needed an hour. The authors are nothing if not long winded. They make the likes of Joan Mellen, Dick Russell (in his revised version), and Noel Twyman look like models of brevity. The book's text comes in at 786 pages. With photos, exhibits, and footnotes the hardcover edition is 875 pages. It was published by Carroll & Graf, a house that is notorious for skimping on editing, fact, and source checking (see the works of Harrison Livingstone.) As we shall see, this book needed serious help in all those areas. In no way does it justify its length. Most of the book is a tedious rehash of the work of dubious authors, so it could have easily been half as long. And what makes that aspect worse is, when all is said and done, they have not proven any of the central tenets of the volume. Even though, as we shall see, they have brazenly cherry-picked the evidence they present.

The book is divided into three parts. Part One deals with the so-called discovery of C-Day. That is, a plan for a coup in Cuba to be carried out by the Pentagon and the CIA. This would be coordinated with the murder of Castro by a secret collaborator on the island. The murder would be blamed on the Russians, this would create a crisis on the island and that would precipitate an invasion by a large flotilla of Cuban exiles led by Manuel Artime, Tony Varona, Eloy Menoyo, Manolo Ray and a group of Fort Benning trained Cuban militia. A provisional government would then be erected. This first part of the book also discusses the CIA-Mafia plots against Castro, two previous assassination attempts in Chicago and Tampa and profiles of major players involved in C-Day. (Part of the book's turgidness comes from repetition. There was no need to discuss the two previous plots against JFK here since they are detailed much later.)

Part Two deals further with the CIA-Mafia plots, and what they see as the actual perceived build-up to the assassination by the Mob. Part Three is essentially a chronicle of November 1963. It includes longer versions of the Chicago and Tampa attempts, the actual assassination, and how that impacted C-Day, and a final chapter entitled The Legacy of Secrecy, in which the authors trace how the assassination enabled a cover-up of C-Day and how this had an effect on events afterwards.

If one examines the text, the first of many curious aspects becomes evident. The longest part of the volume is the middle section, which is not actually about C-Day. It is really about the Mob's motivation, planning, pretexts, and precedents for killing JFK. And this is really the subject of the last section also. So by my rough estimate, about 2/3 of the book is not about what the author's trumpet as their great discovery. The larger part of the book is actually a kind of concentration and aggrandizement of all the Mob-did-it books rolled into one. As we shall see, this book is actually a new (and fatuous) spin on an old and discredited idea, namely Robert Blakey's Mob-did-it theory. The reader can see this just by browsing through the footnotes, which I did for this review. The familiar faces are all there: John Davis, Dan Moldea, Blakey, the HSCA volumes, David Scheim, even, startling enough, Frank Ragano. They are all quoted abundantly and, as we shall see, indiscriminately. I can literally say that this book would not exist in its present (bloated) form without that gallery of authors.

But before dealing with that aspect of the book, let's deal with Part One, where Waldron and Hartmann present the concept of C-Day to us. The plan I summarized above was scheduled for December 1, 1963, nine days after JFK was killed. The sources for this is a series of CIA documents codenamed AM/WORLD, interviews with former Kennedy Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and a man named Harry Williams who was a friend of Bobby Kennedy's and was allegedly coordinating this plan with the exiles.

In the hardcover edition of the book, they do not name the coup leader, but they very strongly hint that it was Che Guevara. They do everything except underline his name in this regard. Whole chapters are written about him. Now, considering that, I had a hard time digesting the logic of AM/WORLD. As anyone would who has read the history of Castro's revolution. We are to believe that Che Guevara, the man who came to symbolize worldwide Marxist rebellion, would betray that lifetime struggle, murder his partner in revolution, ally himself with the capitalist colossus of the north, and blame the murder of his friend on his Russian communist allies. Further, he would then cooperate in a provisional government with the likes of CIA stooges like Artime and Varona. Had Che Guevara undergone a rapid and extreme conversion without anyone noticing? Did the bearded revolutionary icon really believe that by killing Castro and throwing in his lot with Artime, Varona and the CIA that he would be purifying the communist zeal of 1959 which Castro had somehow subdued?

To put this strange scenario on the page, the authors leave out some facts that made Che Guevara the living legend he was. And also the facts of his death, when he was hunted down and killed in Bolivia with the help of the CIA. (Poor devil, he actually thought the guys who killed him were his allies.) Let's fill in some of those expurgated pages. After Castro's revolution took hold, he began rounding up all the higher ups left over from the Batista government. He then arranged a series of show trials before he imprisoned and/or executed them. The number put before the firing squad is estimated at about four hundred and up. The man in charge of the phony trials and summary executions was Che Guevara. So the idea that he would turn around and be palsy-walsy with Artime and Varona, who were much closer to Batista than to him, is kind of weird. In 1959 he may have had them shot or imprisoned. Second, one of the reasons Che left Cuba is that he wanted to spread the Marxist revolt abroad, whereas Castro was trying to solidify it at home. Yet the authors want us to believe that Guevara would put an end to this foothold right in the place he struggled to establish it. Third, during the Missile Crisis, it was feared that the US would launch a huge armada to invade the island. The Russians had given the Cubans not just ballistic missiles, but tactical nukes. Reportedly these were under the control of the Cubans. It was Che Guevara who urged Castro to use them to vaporize any invasion crossing the Caribbean. If you buy this book, a year later he was inviting them with open arms to take over the island he was willing to partially nuke in order to save. Maybe Che Guevara had a nervous breakdown in the interim? Or did he really believe that Artime, Varona and the CIA would allow him, Ray and Menoyo to construct a leftist paradise after the invasion?

Evidently, others, like David Talbot in Salon, had some trouble with this aspect of the book. So in the trade paper version, the authors changed their tune. The new identity of the coup leader is Juan Almeida. Now Almeida does not really fit the profile the authors describe in the hardcover version. That is, a person of such enormous stature and appeal that he could seamlessly replace Castro, convincingly blame the murder on the Russians, and then set up this Provisional Government with a group of people who had invaded their country two years ago and then almost nuked it 13 months before. Further, he is still alive and in the titular position of Revolution Commander. There is a recent photo of him with Raul Castro at a session of the National Assembly in Havana. It was after the trade paper version was released. I wonder what the conversation was like between the two when Raul learned of Juan's plan to murder his brother, and probably him, and turn the country over to the CIA, the Pentagon, and Artime.

What makes this switch even more bracing is the person who rode to the rescue for Waldron and Hartmann. It was none other than Liz Smith. The same Liz Smith who is always good for a blurb on the books of John Davis. Who is always there for a "Kennedys and the murder of Monroe" spiel (which, predictably, figures in this volume on pp. 402-407). And who has always been an avid promoter of Judith Exner. In fact she penned the last installment before Exner passed away. (Of course, Exner appears here more than once.) In her column in the New York Post dated 9/22/06 she says she found out about the coup leader's actual identity through some new CIA documents. Hmmm. (She is not known as an ace archival researcher.)

Another interesting aspect of this coup in Cuba idea is who knew about it and who did not. According to Talbot, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara did not know. Even though the authors insist that it was more a Pentagon operation than a CIA one. (Even more puzzling: they state on p, 42 that the operation could rise to the level of a full-scale invasion by US forces. When were they going to tell McNamara, the day before?) And although the authors use Rusk to bolster their claim, he says he did not know about it at the time, but learned about it later. National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy did not know about it either since he told author David Corn that in 1963, the operations against Cuba were winding down to a dribble. So the three highest Cabinet level officers, who should have known about such an operation, somehow were left in the dark.

But the authors know who was in the light. They were:


Jack Ruby
Guy Banister
David Ferrie
David Morales
Howard Hunt
John Martino
Richard Nixon
Carlos Prio
Santo Trafficante
Jimmy Hoffa
Carlos Marcello
Sam Giancana
Johnny Roselli
David Phillips
Rolando Masferer
Bernard Barker
James McCord
Michael Mertz
Charlie Nicoletti
Gilberto Lopez
Richard Cain
Frank Sturgis
George Nonte
And I saved the best for last: Lee Harvey Oswald. So the Kennedys were so careless that the word about this secret operation leaked out to people like Ruby and Ferrie; but yet they were paradoxically so careful that they managed to keep it from McNamara. Now some people would think this odd. The authors anticipate this by saying that some people in the administration knew and some did not. They even go to the lengths of depicting meetings at which some know about it and some do not. (p. 51)

Even when it's actually under discussion. Yet, to use a figurative example, McNamara never said to Richard Helms, "Dick, did you say we were sponsoring a coup in Cuba next month?" To which Helms must have replied, "Oh no Bob, the Cubana Coupe is a new car model I'm buying."

The aspect of who knew and who did not is so tenuous, so questionable, so minutely balanced on the head of a pin that serious questions arise about those who the authors say were witting. As stated above, Helms was supposed to be knowledgeable about C-Day. Yet there is a revelatory anecdote about this issue in his book, Over My Shoulder (pgs 226-227). Helms got word of a large arms cache that had landed in Venezuela from Cuba. It was allegedly shipped to help some communist guerillas there. In other words, Castro was exporting revolution into South America. Something the Kennedys did not want him to do. Helms was so alarmed by this that he personally went over to see Robert Kennedy to plead his case for emergency action. After all it was three tons of armaments. RFK passed on it and told him to go see the president. He did and he even took over one of the rifles supposedly found, presumably to convince JFK of the urgency of the situation. Here was the casus belli. Yet JFK was non-plussed. But Helms did salvage something for his efforts. He asked for and got a photo of Kennedy.

What I find so interesting about this episode is the date Helms places it on: November 19, 1963. Did Helms forget C-Day was coming up in 12 days? Did he want to move it up because he knew the Mafia was going to kill JFK? Was it all a silly charade? Or maybe Helms just wanted the picture. But that's not all. In Joseph B. Smith's book Portrait of A Cold Warrior (p. 383), he refers to the seizure of this cache of arms. He apparently got some reports on it, and skillful and veteran analyst he was, he quickly deduced it was planted. So if we take Ultimate Sacrifice seriously, Helms went to the trouble of creating a phony provocation when he knew that C-Day was less than two weeks off.

But the capper is this: both the Helms and Smith books appear in the footnotes to Ultimate Sacrifice.

David Talbot raised an interesting point about the central thesis. If the Kennedys were sponsoring a coup in Cuba for December 1st, why would the Mafia, and some Cubans, conspire to assassinate him nine days before? It's especially odd since one would think that the exile Cubans who Waldron and Hartmann say knew about it, like say Masferer and Sturgis, would likely want it to succeed. After all, they had been working for this for years. Interestingly, the authors don't even mention some of the Cubans who are highly suspect in the JFK case, like say Bernardo DeTorres and Sergio Arcacha Smith. Now, if Smith was involved in JFK's murder, it is really odd. He was part of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) as was Varona, who the authors maintain was one of the major players in the operation. Yet Varona apparently never told his colleague Smith. Or maybe there was nothing to tell. For as Bill Davy noted in Probe Magazine(Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 5), FBI informants within the CRC, including leader Jose Miro Cardona, were disgusted with Kennedy in 1963 over his Cuba policy. After a high level meeting in Washington, Cardona came away with the feeling that "the United States policy is now one of peaceful co-existence with Communist Cuba." More to the point, "the United States has no plan to free Cuba of Communism." The Justice Department report continued that the CRC's feeling about the US was "very bad, and they feel they had been abandoned in their fight." Is this perhaps why people like Smith and DeTorres became suspect in the JFK case and why Smith tried to set up the seemingly pro-Castro Oswald, in order to provoke an attack against Cuba? You won't read a sentence about that in Ultimate Sacrifice.

Although the authors mention the Lisa Howard/William Attwood back channel to Castro in the attempt for détente with Cuba, they downplay it (p. 113), and later they actually dismiss it as meaningless. They also do not mention Kennedy's 1963 letter to Khruschev, which Davy quotes: "I have neither the intention nor the desire to invade Cuba. I consider that it is for the Cuban people themselves to choose their destiny." (Davy, op. cit.) And of course, Waldron and Hartmann ignore the important Peter Kornbluh article in Cigar Aficionado (summarized in Probe, Vol. 7 No. 1 pp. 8-9). Probably because it paints a quite different picture of the quest for détente. When Castro learned of Kennedy's death, he told JFK's envoy in the process, "This is an end to your mission of peace. Everything is changed." And as Kornbluh notes, Castro was right. LBJ pursued it no further.

This rigorous, systematic refusal to acknowledge or confront contrary evidence is nowhere more demonstrable than in the treatment of the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. One would think that in a book concentrating on Cuban-American relations from 1960-63, these two events would get special treatment. One would be dead wrong. Combined they get all of five pages. Even though there have been reams of documents declassified on both events by the Assassinations Records Review Board, they use none of it. Incredibly, they ignore both the CIA Inspector General Report by Lyman Kirkpatrick, and the White House sponsored Taylor Report on the Bay of Pigs. Concerning the Missile Crisis, they fail to quote from the landmark book The Kennedy Tapes, which is the closest thing we have to a verbatim account of the crisis. This was unfortunate for me since I wanted to get their take on why JFK would not OK an invasion during those two events when everyone in the situation room was demanding it, yet he would OK one in 1963 when tensions had decreased and fewer people were egging him on. If you essentially skimp the two incidents, you can dodge the question.



II

The second part of the book is about the plotting of the Mafia Dons to assassinate President Kennedy. It also discusses the idea that the Mob discovered the C-Day plan, and then used this to somehow cover up their murder plot. This is the new twist to another Mob based scenario.

This part of the book is heavily -- and I mean heavily -- reliant on the authors of three decades ago whose books were spawned by the work of the House Select Committee's unremitting focus on the Mob. Waldron and Hartmann line them all up and use them profusely and without care: Dan Moldea, John Davis, Robert Blakey and Dick Billings, David Scheim. Even Frank Ragano and Aaron Kohn appear. As we shall see, some of the statements made in this section of the book are rather startling.

But even I was surprised at what the authors pulled in Chapter 33. Like Joan Mellen, they want to rewrite the history of the CIA-Mafia plots. To do so they question the best source we have on that subject, namely the 1967 Inspector General Report done for Richard Helms at the request of President Johnson. They say it is incomplete and that it leaves out certain aspects. Maybe this is so, and maybe it is not. For instance, there are rumors that the writers of the report actually did interview John Roselli. Did Waldron and Hartmann actually stumble upon this tape, or transcript or at least the interviewer? Is this what they found that was left out? That would truly be new and important.

But that isn't it. What is it then? None other than Dan Moldea (pp. 380-390).

They actually say that material in Moldea's 1978 book The Hoffa Wars should have been in the IG Report. I had to smile.

Let me explain. After I read Moldea's disgraceful book on the RFK case, I was shocked at its shoddiness (Probe Vol. 5 No. 4, p. 10, and The Assassinations pgs 610-631). I wondered how someone like this ever got started. So I went back and borrowed his first volume, the book on Hoffa. I took 30 pages of notes and came to the conclusion that it was almost as bad as his RFK book. (I never reviewed it since we decided to discontinue Probe.) Since Moldea is relying a lot on Walter Sheridan and other such sources, the portrait of Hoffa is aggrandized and sensationalized. The reason for this is twofold. Sheridan furnished Moldea with his prime witness against Hoffa, Ed Partin. Second, Moldea was writing right after the revelations of the Church Committee Report, which exposed in public the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Partin, Sheridan, and Moldea had a problem with those plots. Hoffa wasn't in on them. So Sheridan let Moldea borrow Partin so he could further his mendacious magic act. And Waldron and Hartmann suck this all up -- and expand it even further.

But being indiscriminate with a writer like Moldea is like a boxer leaving his chin exposed in the ring. You're looking for trouble. When Sheridan was heralding Partin as his star witness he had to do a lot of rehab work on him. Because writers like Fred Cook had shown that Partin had a criminal record that, to say the least, was rather compromising. So he decided to give Partin a lie detector test. Needless to say, since Sheridan arranged it, he passed with flying colors. But years later, something interesting happened to this test. A professional society of polygraph technicians got hold of the raw data from it. They were worried that less than scrupulous people were abusing legal ethics in using the machine. So a team of the country's leading experts studied the results and unveiled their findings at a convention. They concluded that Partin was deceptive throughout, but he almost broke the machine at the part where he related Hoffa's plot to murder RFK. Partin was so bad that the society deduced that the administrator of the test had to turn down the detection device to ensure the results Sheridan wanted. Ace archivist Peter Vea mailed me these documents over a decade ago and I discussed them at the 1995 COPA Conference in Washington. Vea later sent me a newspaper story about one of the original technicians being later convicted for fraud. So the information has been out there for about 12 years. Somehow, Waldron and Hartmann missed it. (And so did Moldea since he was still vouching for Partin in 1997 when his RFK book was published.)

But as I said, Moldea's book came out in 1978. Well after Hoffa was convicted and passed away so mysteriously. So the act Partin did for Sheridan was not enough for Moldea.. Watergate and the Church Committee had occurred in the interim. So for Moldea, Partin added some current sex appeal to his already fatuous story. He now told Moldea that Carlos Marcello contributed a half million to Nixon's campaign in 1968 (Moldea pp. 108, 260). The go-between was Hoffa. Hoffa was also supplying arms to Castro before he took over Cuba (Ibid. p. 107). Waldron and Hartmann use these tales and source them to Moldea-- without telling the reader that the source is Partin! At one point they even refer to this proven liar as a most trusted source. In this day and age, with all we know about Partin, this is academic irresponsibility.

But if Moldea is bad, what can one say about Frank Ragano? Ragano is mentioned many times by Moldea in his Hoffa book. Ragano was an attorney for Hoffa, Marcello and Trafficante. He did this for many years. And during this time, many of these Mafia did it books emerged. But it was not until Oliver Stone's JFK came out that he decided to write about how his three clients conspired to kill President Kennedy. The other curious thing about the timing of Ragano's 1993 book Mob Lawyer, is that he was in trouble with the IRS over back taxes and cried out that he was being persecuted: perhaps for his much delayed broadcast about his clients assassination conspiracy? Or maybe he was just using the delayed expose to plea bargain the charge down? Whatever the case, Ragano made two mistakes in his coming out party. First, he sold Moldea the old chestnut about Jim Garrison's investigation of Clay Shaw being a method to divert attention away from Marcello. I exposed this for the canard it was at the 1994 COPA Conference, and Bill Davy expanded on it in his book, Let Justice Be Done (pgs 149-167). Evidently, Ragano had not done his homework on the issue. And that crack investigative reporter Moldea was not up to checking it out beforehand. (See Ragano's biography at spartacus.schoolnet.) Second, Ragano tried to get cute and was a bit too specific about Trafficante's convenient deathbed confession to him. He said it occurred on March 13, 1987 in Tampa. He says the ailing Don called him and asked him to come down and pick him up. When Ragano arrived to take him for a spin, the dying 72-year-old Mob boss trotted out to the car in pajamas and robe. He told Ragano that he and his underworld cohorts had erred. They should have killed Bobby, not John. His conscience cleansed by his confession to his consigliore, Trafficante passed away a few days later.

Unfortunately for Ragano, Tony Summers checked up on his belatedly revealed tale. According to Summers, who sources several witnesses, Trafficante was living in Miami in March of 1987 and had not been to Tampa for months. He was very ill at the time and was receiving kidney dialysis and carrying a colostomy bag. Further, Summers interviewed at least two witnesses who placed Trafficante in Miami on that day. There are also hospital records that put him in Miami's Mercy Hospital for dialysis treatment on both the day before and the day after the Ragano "confession". And Trafficante's doctor in Tampa said he was not there on March 13th. (Vanity Fair 12/94) Now, from Miami to Tampa is about 280 miles. To think that a 72 year old dying man would drive four hours one way and then four hours back -- between dialysis treatments -- to do something he could have done with a call on a pay phone strains credulity to the breaking point. To postulate that he would fly the distance is just as bad. Did he buy two seats in order to put his colostomy bag next to him? Ragano told Summers he could produce other witnesses. But only if he was sued for libel. Since it is next to impossible for a family to sue for a deceased member over libel, Ragano was being real gutsy.

Another spurious author used extensively in this section is Davis, who they refer to as a "noted historian" (p.264) and later (p. 768) as an "acclaimed historian." (The authors are quite liberal in their use of the term "historian": Tony Summers, Peter Dale Scott, even Tad Szulc are all given the title. Yet none of them are historians.) Others, like Bill Davy and myself have questioned the methodology of this "noted historian". As I once wrote of him, although Davis likes to use a large bibliography to lend weight and academic ballast to his work, he does not footnote his text. And as Davy and I have both pointed out, even the freight of his pretentious bibliography is spurious. In his two books on the JFK assassination, Mafia Kingfish and The Kennedy Contract, Davis listed two primary sources: the transcript of the Clay Shaw trial and 3, 000 pages of CIA documents. He said they were housed at Southeastern Louisiana University at Hammond. Davy checked and I called. They aren't there. (Probe Vol. 5, No.1, p. 9) In that same issue, in discussing his Kennedy biography, Dynasty and Disaster, I showed how Davis distorted his sources to twist words and events into something they do not really mean. And sometimes into the opposite of what they mean. I then demonstrated how his lack of footnoting made this hard to detect for a novice.

But Ultimate Sacrifice ignores all this. The book uses Davis, and even some of the claims that Davy actually addressed head on. For instance: the 7,000-dollar payoff, which Marcello supposedly admitted in his HSCA executive session testimony. The problem here is he actually didn't admit it. (Ibid) Further, Davy and I interviewed U.S. Attorney Jon Volz who was in on the prosecution that put Marcello away. He and his cohorts listened to years of surveillance on Marcello, including the storied "Brilab tapes". Volz told us, "There's nothing on those tapes." (Ibid). In fact, Volz told us that far from the fearsome, all-inspiring Mafia Don Davis makes him out to be, Marcello was kind of slow and dull. Further, Waldron and Hartmann use their "noted historian", to make Marcello an all encompassing Mafia Superman, his Hitlerian reach extending throughout ten states, Central America, the Caribbean and beyond. (Ultimate Sacrifice p. 264). Funny, because Volz told us that, by the time he prosecuted him, Marcello was not even the number one godfather in Louisiana. Anthony Carolla was.

But Waldron and Hartmann need to use Davis to exalt Marcello because they want us to believe, as Davis and Blakey do, that Marcello was reaching through to Oswald through Guy Banister and David Ferrie. Repeatedly, throughout the volume, Ferrie and Banister are referred to as "working for Marcello.". In no other book I have ever encountered have I seen this rubric used with these two men anywhere to the extent it appears here. Further, Banister and Ferrie are pretty much cleaned off of their other well-documented ties to the CIA and the FBI. There is almost no mention of Ferrie's ties to the Bay of Pigs, how he trained Cuban exiles for that operation, how he engineered aquatic equipment like a miniature submarine, how he watched films of the debacle with his friend Sergio Arcacha Smith. There is also no mention of Ferrie's attempts to recruit young men for MONGOOSE. And it's almost the same for Banister. Again, this was an eccentric trend that was started with Blakey and Billings at the end of the HSCA. Ferrie had worked for Wray Gill, one of Marcello's local attorneys. So Blakey shorthanded this into Ferrie working for Marcello. In 1962 and 1963, Ferrie got Banister some investigatory work through his Gill employment. But not even the HSCA and Blakey construed this as Banister being an employee of Marcello. Waldron and Hartmann do this throughout. Again, this is deceptive and journalistically irresponsible. But, as I will show later, its part of a grand design.

But it's not just Marcello who gets the Superman treatment. Apparently modeling themselves on Davis, they attempt to enlarge John Roselli beyond any dimensions I have ever read. Roselli was seen previously as a second tier Mafia figure, right below the top Godfathers who sat on the national council. And his affable demeanor, brains, and facility in conversation made him a good ambassador and envoy for the Cosa Nostra to gain entry into things like the film business and the CIA-Mafia plots. This book goes way beyond that to places I had never seen or imagined. Did you know that Roselli was somehow in on the murder of Castillo Armas in Guatemala in 1957? How about the assassination of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in 1961? If you can believe it, the dapper, satin shirted, silk tied Roselli was in training with the Cuban exiles at JM/WAVE. He even makes an appearance at Banister's office at 544 Camp Street. Roselli is somehow involved with Marilyn Monroe in a ménage a trois with Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana before she tries to warn the FBI about a Mob hit on RFK. (This whole episode with Monroe has to be read to be believed. Its on pages 405-409.) And with Waldron and Hartmann, its Roselli who introduced Judith Exner to Senator Kennedy, since Roselli is trying to play it safe in the 1960 election (p. 390). And as the Mob plot heats up, he maneuvers her around to somehow monitor JFK.

Except it's not true. Unfortunately, I read Exner's book My Story (see The Assassinations pp. 329-338 for my essay on Exner). In that book, Exner describes her first meeting with Senator Kenendy. She met him through a dinner hosted by Peter Lawford and Frank Sinatra (see pp. 86-89). In that book, contrary to what Ultimate Sacrifice clearly implies, there is not a hint that John Roselli had anything to do with her relations with JFK. In their further aggrandizement of Roselli, they attempt to place him in Dallas on 11/22/63 but they qualify this by saying that none of the sources meet their standard of reliability. (p. 712) But they state the accusation anyway by noting the multiplicity of accounts. Also, according to them, Roselli had no alibi for that day. When I looked up their multiplicity of sources, I smiled and shook my head. The three were James Files, Robert Plumlee, and Chauncey Holt. Gary Aguilar wrote a searing expose on the whole Files affair, which resulted in a rather embarrassing video on the JFK case. (Probe Vol. 3 No. 6 p. 27) Plumlee has been marketing his story for years about flying various people in and out of Dallas before and after the assassination. He figured in one of the early cuts of that video which the producer tried to sell to investors. The late Chauncey Holt was trying to sell himself as one of the three tramps for a number of years. The fact that the authors include these men is critical comment in and of itself.


III
But even using all these dubious books and authors, with their questionable sources and bibliographies, Waldron and Hartmann still suffer greatly from the "conditional syndrome". That is, something can happen only if something else occurs i.e. the contingency or assumption factor. To give the reader a representative sample:


If Roselli had told David Morales that Ruby would be helpful in the fall 1963 CIA-Mafia plot, Morales would have had no reason to doubt him. (565)

It is possible that the call was related to Oswald...or a trip Ruby would soon make to Chicago... (566)

And even on November 1, Ferrie might have flown to Chicago instead of back to New Orleans, if the Chicago assassination plan had not been uncovered ...(577)

Phillips was saying that about Oswald in the context of an autobiographical Novel, but it could indicate that the CIA's "plan we had devised against Castro" was similar to the way JFK was killed. (p. 580)

The sad thing is that the Mafia may have taken the very plan that the CIA had intended to use against Castro...and used it instead to kill JFK in an open limousine. That could account for the comments of Bobby and David Atlee Phillips after JFK's death. (P. 581)

And my favorite:

Morales probably engaged in business with Trafficante associate John Martino in the years after JFK's death. On the other hand, Morales may have simply provided help and information to Roselli during his nighttime drinking binges. (p. 584, italics are mine in all excerpts)
I am reminded of Cyril Wecht's response to one of Michael Baden's inventive rationales for the single bullet theory: "Yeah, and if my mother had a penis she'd be my father." The book is literally strewn with these kinds of "would have" "could have" "might have" scenarios. In the sample above, I culled from a span of 20 pages and I cited six passages, leaving at least one other one out. Go ahead and do the math for a text of 786 pages. There must be well into the hundreds of these Rumsfeldian "unkown unknowns" populating this book-- like autumn leaves in a Pennsylvania backyard. When I wrote my introduction to Bill Davy's fine work, Let Justice Be Done, I noted that one of its qualities is the author used very few of these types of clauses. He didn't have to. I also noted that the Mafia theory advocates were noted for these kinds of contingency phrases. Since Ultimate Sacrifice is essentially the "Mega Mob Did It" opus, it amplifies the usage of them exponentially. Which leaves one to ask: If you need so many of these clauses then what is the real value of the book and its research?

Hand in glove with the above feature is the "he had dinner with him" syndrome. Peter Dale Scott 's works were rich in this kind of thing and then Robert Blakey brought it to new heights in the field. Waldron and Hartmann continue in this tradition.


Back in Dallas on Thursday evening November 20, Ruby had dinner with ... Ralph Paul. Paul was associated with Austin's Bar-B-Cue, where one of the part-time security guards was policeman J. D. Tippit. (p. 713)
The Teamster organizer was an associate of Frank Chavez, linked to Jack Ruby by FBI reports. (p. 740)

Ruby called the home of friend Gordon McLendon, owner of KLIF radio, who was close to David Atlee Phillips and had a connection to Marcello. (747)

If you use the sources the authors use, and a lot of conditional phrasing, and you make the connections as oblique and inconsequential as a Bar-B-Cue pit, then you can just about connect almost anything and anyone. Sort of like the Six Degrees of Separation concept. You can even come close to duplicating that masterpiece of disinformation, Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal, aka The Torbitt Document (which is not a document and is therefore even deceptive in its nickname.) The point is that now, with the work of the ARRB, we don't need to do this anymore. Waldron and Hartmann want to take us back to the Torbitt days.

In this middle section of the book, which allegedly describes the plotting of the assassination, appear some of the most bizarre statements and