Who killed JFK?

[Tim Carroll]

I do believe that it was a Mafia/CIA plot deploying Cuban exiles at the operational level.

I have speculated that he may have been induced to do something incriminating, such as bring his rifle into the TSBD, by being told there was to be a fake assassination attempt on JFK's life. The idea is not original to me; I recently rewatched the Stone movie "JFK" and in that movie Costner suggests the idea of the use of a fake assassination story to trap Oswald. So I assume we probably are in agreement. I used to believe that Oswald was at least a participant. Now I doubt that and I think he was probably working for some agency of the fed government, which of course made him the perfect patsy.

I agree with that the operation was comprised of elements that functioned in the nether regions between the cracks of the CIA/Mafia/Cuban exile alliance. A possibility that I keep open is that there were two operations in Dealey Plaza at work that day. One was an Operations Northwoods assassination "attempt," perhaps even involving Oswald bringing the Carcano to the TSBD as part of a fake attempt to be blamed upon Castro or the extreme right-wing. He may have deliberately fired at Connally.

We know that H. L. Hunt was informed on November 4, 1963 in writing by his security chief that such a White House counterintelligence operation was planned, possibly to be blamed on Castro or possibly to be blamed on the Dallas right-wing extremists. Blamed on the right-wing, JFK's reelection would have been assured and a corrosive element in American society, shades of McCarthyism, would have been discredited. Blamed on Castro, which Oswald's posturing raises as a distinct possibility, an invasion of Cuba would have been assured.

With such foreknowledge, it's not hard to imagine how an Operation Northwoods operation could have been piggybacked, or hijacked, so as to implicate many others not involved in the actual killing of the president. This would explain David Phillips' angst about something having gone terribly wrong, and possibly add to an understanding of Bobby Kennedy's quiescence. Even without this double operation scenario, renegade CIA operatives, using U.S. trained Cuban exiles, would still have required the kind of funding that the Texas oil extremists like Hunt and Murchison could and would provide. We can also be fairly certain that Marcello and Trafficante would have been willing sponsors.

Assassination research is often ridiculed by the quantity and diversity of proposed suspects. But differentiating between the CIA and the Mafia became impossible after the September, 1960 meeting at the Fountainbleu Hotel. And differentiating CIA from anti-Castro exiles became impossible after the Operation Mongoose era in 1962 and the U.S. legitimation of many of the exiles by virtue of their training at Ft. Benning. Operationally, the man in the middle in all of this, from the Fountainbleu to the Missile Crisis two years later, from the CIA to the the Mafia to the anti-Castro Cubans, was Santos Trafficante.

The single man who operated in all of the above circles and was number one fixer for the biggest fish of all, Howard Hughes, was Robert Maheu. This man brought the CIA and Mafia together, was a close friend of Johhny Roselli's, who in turn was a close friend of William Harvey, director of ZR/Rifle, and bottom-line: Maheu was Howard Hughes' top man. Howard Hughes the individual personified the merger between Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex. Anti-Castro operations had received Hughes' support in the use of his island, Sal Cay.

Tim

[Tim Gratz]

An excellent post, Tim. The idea that a fake assassination attempt (for either of the purposes you propose) was hijacked makes explains much. Made it pretty easy for the conspirators to identify a patsy.

Two questions:

1) Whom if you know, are the people with Maheu?

2) You wrote:

"We know that H. L. Hunt was informed on November 4, 1963 in writing by his security chief that such a White House counterintelligence operation was planned, possibly to be blamed on Castro or possibly to be blamed on the Dallas right-wing extremists." This is dynamite information I don't think I have seen before. Can you identify the source for it?

I would state that while Maheu expressed his clear animosity for JFK (characterizing what happened at the BOP as "murder") and even though he was associated with the evil mafioso leaders, I am unaware of any evidence that links him to the assassination. I don't think association with possible conspirators and a clear animosity to JFK is a sufficient nexus, even though he admitted he was willing to set aside his moral and religious concerns to participate in the murder of a foreign head of state.

[Tim Carroll]

1) Whom if you know, are the people with Maheu?

2) You wrote:

"We know that H. L. Hunt was informed on November 4, 1963 in writing by his security chief that such a White House counterintelligence operation was planned, possibly to be blamed on Castro or possibly to be blamed on the Dallas right-wing extremists." This is dynamite information I don't think I have seen before. Can you identify the source for it?

1) Identifying the two gentlemen with Maheu has been troubling. Maybe James Richards has some new ideas.

2) The source for my claim that H. L. Hunt was informed in advance of a White House operation comes from Harry Hurt III's Texas Rich (W. W. Norton & Company: New York, NY), p. 223. A November 4, 1963 interoffice memo headlined "POLITICS" from Hunt Oil Security Chief Paul Rothermel to his boss said, after some mention of rumors of possible violence from right-wingers, went on to say:

"There is another report from a left-wing group that an incident will occur with the knowledge of the President whereby the left-wingers will start the incident in hopes of dragging in any of the right side groups or individuals nearby and then withdrawing. The talk is that the incident involving Adlai Stevenson made the present administration hopeful in that if they could get the same thing to happen to Kennedy it could reassure his election.... If an incident were to occur, the true story of who perpetrated it would never come out."

A few days later, old man Hunt himself supposedly wrote a letter to the editor in which he cautioned, "Those who take pride in being 'right of center' may be led astray to demonstrate against speakers for their opposition. A demonstration can be started by some of the less judicious of them. One may even be started by the opposition acting as decoys to rope in patriots to cause them to look ill-mannered." There is no sign that the letter was ever printed in either of the Dallas newspapers, but Hunt later had it reprinted in a collection called Old Letters To The Editor.

I would state that while Maheu expressed his clear animosity for JFK (characterizing what happened at the BOP as "murder") and even though he was associated with the evil mafioso leaders, I am unaware of any evidence that links him to the assassination. I don't think association with possible conspirators and a clear animosity to JFK is a sufficient nexus, even though he admitted he was willing to set aside his moral and religious concerns to participate in the murder of a foreign head of state.

The closest connection between Maheu and the assassination that particular day was through his relationship with Johnny Roselli. Those who argue that Roselli was not a participant in Dealey Plaza cite his alibi of being at the Howard Hughes/Robert Maheu Desert Inn in Las Vegas. Reviewing the FBI surveillance of Roselli, it becomes clear that the Desert Inn was Roselli's routine method of evading his followers for a few days at a time. Maheu is the truly powerful player on the Roselli-Harvey axis. From there it all went through the CIA's ZR-Rifle and the Mafia's Santos Trafficante, who Roselli later claimed was less than sincere in his supposed efforts on behalf of the government to kill Castro. There is this reported exchange:

"I'm going to tell you something you won't believe. This whole thing has been a scam. Santo [Trafficante] never did nothing but bullxxxx everybody. All these xxxxing wild schemes the CIA dreamed up never got further than Santo. He just sat on it, conned everybody into thinking that guys were risking their lives sneaking into Cuba, having boats shot out from under them, all bullxxxx. . . . All for nothing. What a terrible waste of a lifetime opportunity. Imagine . . . if we'd knocked off Castro. Think of the power-"*

* Ovid Demaris, The Last Mafioso, (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), 235-246.

Tim

Edited October 10, 2005 by Tim Carroll

[James Richards]

1) Identifying the two gentlemen with Maheu has been troubling. Maybe James Richards has some knew ideas. (Tim Carroll)

The original source of what I call the 'Robert Maheu in Las Vegas' photos didn't know who the men were and I have been unable to lock anything in. The guy in the middle of the image posted above is the same guy with Maheu below. To state the obvious, he is obviously someone.

James

[Tim Gratz]

Thanks, Tim and James!