What has blocked the Marcello-Trafficante solution to the JFK assassination? The legacy of Garrison?

[Greg Doudna]

What has blocked the Marcello-Trafficante solution to the JFK assassination? The legacy of Garrison?

Could it be that the John F. Kennedy assassination already has a basic solution, with no need for another sixty years of mystery? That solution being that it was not a nut acting alone, and was not Castro behind it despite CIA machinations at the time and since trying to make it look that way. Nor is there necessary reason to suppose the extremist-right plotting according to the talk of Milteer reported by Miami police informant Somersett, succeeded.

What happened was: mob boss Marcello of New Orleans who also controlled Dallas, with the assistance of Trafficante of Florida, got Kennedy. Its all there: motive, means, opportunity, silencing of witnesses, coverup by Hoover and by the Warren Commission and by the successor president, "somebody would have talked" witnesses who did talk, and confession. 

To put it simply, Kennedy was whacked by Marcello and Trafficante as part of a coup which removed Kennedy as president and replaced him with a president more amenable to the interests of those who favored a removal of Kennedy. The objections raised are straw men and not substantial upon examination. Straw man: Marcello was incapable of carrying out mob-compromised Hoover's coverup, therefore Marcello did not do it. (Conclusion does not follow from fact cited.) Straw man: no mob figure would hire someone as unprofessional as Oswald to do a hit, therefore Marcello did not do it. (Conclusion does not follow from fact cited; the hit was not done by Oswald.) Straw man: the mob never used patsies, therefore Marcello did not do it. (Premise not correct according to mob authorities, therefore conclusion does not follow.) Straw man: Marcello could not control the autopsy, the photos and the medical, could not forge and plant all the physical evidence etc and etc., therefore Marcello did not do it. (By that logic nobody killed Kennedy; false premises.) Straw man: there were interests served by the removal of JFK from office which did not concern Marcello, therefore Marcello did not do it. (Conclusion does not follow from fact cited.) Straw man: it has been debunked that the mob killed JFK because of ingratitude after helping JFK win the narrow election of 1960. (Yes that story involving Joseph Kennedy Sr. and Giancana of Chicago has been largely discredited. But it has nothing to do with the roles of Marcello and Trafficante in the JFK assassination.) Straw man: the Justice Department had wiretaps on major mob figures across the US at the time and those wiretaps did not pick up knowledge of the JFK assassination, therefore Marcello did not do it. (As Blakey explains in the Talbot article, those wiretaps did not extend to include Marcello, and Marcello did not need or seek approval from the national committee to carry out the JFK assassination.) Straw man: John Martino and Cubans from Florida were involved in the assassination, outside of Marcello's organization, therefore Marcello did not do it. (According to sources, Marcello's m.o. was to import hitmen from outside on loan; the involvement of John Martino and others involved with Trafficante's crime organization in Florida is consistent with that pattern.) Straw man: the Secret Service was involved and Marcello did not control the Secret Service, therefore Marcello did not do it. (Whether there was witting active assistance to the assassination by Secret Service personnel such as in choice of parade route, intentional security stripping, tipoffs to mob intelligence of security vulnerabilities without causing such vulnerabilities, unassisted dereliction of duty or security failures are issues but in none of the possible answers to these questions does it logically follow that Marcello did not carry out the assassination.)

The books are there with the information: David Scheim, Contract on America; Seth Kantor, The Ruby Coverup; Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy; John Canal, Silencing the Assassin; John Davis, Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Dan Moldea, The Hoffa Wars; Stefano Vaccara, Carlos Marcello: the Man Behind the Assassination; Frank Cellura, The Last Nail in the Warren Commission Coffin, and many more. There is the HSCA report on Carlos Marcello, and this short article by David Talbot, “The man who solved the Kennedy assassination” (Blakey) (https://www.salon.com/2003/11/22/conspiracy_6/).

The Marcello-Trafficante solution was the partial conclusion of the second major governmental investigation of the John F. Kennedy assassination carried out by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), and the full conclusion of that investigation’s chief counsel, though the force of that conclusion was weakened by Blakey's assumption that Marcello had Oswald carry out the shooting which is not sensible (since Oswald was not a professional and it is doubtful that he had ability to ensure confidence of success in an assassination attempt). But that and other flaws can be remedied by correcting those flaws.

Here is the question: what is the block among what seem to be a majority of JFK assassination conspiracy researchers, from going for closure of the case in terms of a framework of this solution? Is it because of the legacy of Garrison? 

Marcello controlled politicians, judges, public officials throughout Louisiana, part of Texas including Dallas and two other states as well. Marcello's crime organization was the biggest employer in Louisiana. Yet New Orleans district attorney Garrison professed unawareness that Marcello in his city was involved in crime, let alone the JFK assassination. Here is who New Orleans district attorney Garrison publicly accused of involvement in the assassination of JFK. These accusations directed public attention away from Marcello (references at https://www.jfk-assassination.net/suspects.htm).

• a team of Cuban guerillas trained secretly in St. Tammany Parish; JFK killers are "definitely among the Cuban trainees"
• "big business, Texas style, financed the assassination"
• "paramilitary right wing units which were financed and encouraged in their training and given weapons by the Central Intelligence Agency"
• "it was the Military-Industrial Complex that put up the money for the assassination"
• "the conspiracy was limited to the aerospace wing. I've got the names of three companies and their employees who were involved in setting up the President's murder. Do you have a pencil?"
• "you have within the Dallas police force, you have an element, essentially the Minute Man element, the extreme militant right-wing group, which is actively involved in assassination"
• "an element of big business in Dallas, Texas, big business was involved. Oil money helped finance it ... the Dallas individuals, Minute Men, and so forth, and a handful of White Russians who got control of Oswald actually started this as early as 1962"
• "individuals of the Dallas police force helped kill Jack Kennedy ... It is clear that individuals on the Dallas police force were involved in the assassination and involved in the continuing protection of the assassins"
• "it was a homosexual thrill-killing, plus the excitement of getting away with a perfect crime"
• people with "Neo-poopoo" political views such as Clay Shaw killed Kennedy
• "there are elements of the Dallas establishment that are deeply involved"
• The assassination was sponsored by “oil millionaires”

Following are excerpts from several of the authors named addressing the puzzle of why Garrison did not go after Marcello of New Orleans for the assassination of President Kennedy. 

Seth Kantor:

"Among the questions that went unanswered was this one by [HSCA counsel] Sprague: 'Mr. Trafficante, did you ever discuss with any individuals plans to assassinate President Kennedy prior to the assassination?' The witness replied, reading the words from a card, 'I respectfully refuse to answer that question pursuant to my constitutional rights under the first, fourth, fifth and 14th amendments.' Translated, the answer was, 'Drop dead.' And, translated, the question had been, 'When are you going to tell us what happened at Carlos Marcello's meeting at Churchill Farms in September, 1962?' That was the meeting of select mafiosi in which Marcello, the New Orleans boss of bosses, had demanded blood-letting revenge against his sworn enemy, Bobby Kennedy, and the Kennedy power base. Within days, Trafficante was confiding in Miami that President Kennedy was to be hit. There is no doubt that Marcello and Trafficante were tough enough and close enough to make such plans. They were seated next to each other in a private basement room of La Stella, a New York restaurant in Queens, with 11 other mobsters, including the leaders of the Genovese, Gambino and Colombo Mafia families, when the police raided their business meeting, three years after the Kennedy assassination. They were arrested for consorting with mobsters." (pp. 402-403)

Dan Moldea:

"Marcello and Trafficante, who had long been business associates in the drug traffic, had bcome closer than ever. They even shared the same New Orleans doctor, according to law enforcement agents. When they were not in direct communication with each other, David Yaras served as respected go-between for them. Marcello and Trafficante were arrested together on September 22, 1966, along with other mob figures, during a meeting at La Stella restaurant in New York. Also present was Frank Ragano, the Hoffa-Trafficante attorney. 

"Edward Partin [witness to Marcello pre-assassination threats against the life of President Kennedy], still in Marcello's territory at great risk, was offered several bribes--including one for a million dollars from a New Orleans municipal judge--in return for a signed affidavit admitting that he had perjured himself in Chatanooga. One of Marcello's bagmen, according to Partin, was Hoffa's 'foster son,' Charles O'Brien, who allegedly was among those offering large sums for help. Later, during an interview, Hoffa denied that Marcello was his chief money man: 'They said my good friend Carlos Marcello called the mob together and put up $1,000,000 to get Hoffa outta jail. What kind of bullshit is this? Where'd they get those figures from?...'

"When Partin refused to yield, his enemies got tough. In early 1967, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison opened his own investigation of the Kennedy assassination, which became an ideal means of intimidating Partin.

"One of Garrison's first 'revelations' was that David Ferrie had conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald to murder the President. Claiming that the CIA was directly involved in the conspiracy, Garrison was taken seriously after Ferrie was found dead in his apartment, on his first day of freedom after being in protective custody for four days. The coroner determined that Ferrie had died from a massive brain hemorrhage. Earlier that same day, a close friend of Ferrie, also active in the anti-Castro movement, had been murdered. However, there were at the same time other revelations that Garrison had actively protected Marcello's rackets. Aaron M. Kohn, director of the city's crime commission, said before a U.S. House subcommittee, 'We have been in repeated public conflicts with Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison who denies the existence in our city of provable organized crime. He and his staff have blocked our efforts to have grand juries probe the influence of the Cosa Nostra and other syndicate operations.'

"The obvious question was: If Garrison is protecting Marcello, why would he implicate a Marcello man in the conspiracy? ‘It is quite possible that Garrison didn't realize Ferrie's relationship with Marcello,' says one assassination investigator. 'Garrrison, who later claimed to know Marcello and a Marcello lieutenant from whom Garrison had purchased his home, said that he had received little cooperation from the FBI. And it was the FBI which had the information that Ferrie was a Marcello aide. Marcello probably had a fit when Garrison started throwing Ferrie's name around. It is conceivable, considering their relationship, that Marcello, through his middlemen, let Garrison know that he didn't like what was going on. This quite possibly happened, because it wasn't long before Garrison began flying off walls in his investigation.'

"Later, on June 23, 1967 Garrison, according to WJBO in Baton Rouge, claimed, 'We know that Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were in New Orleans several times .. . there was a third man driving them and we are checking the possibility it was [Edward] Partin.'

"Sensibly, Partin was scared. Not only was he being pressured by Jimmy Hoffa and Carlos Marcello, now he was being implicated in the Kennedy assassination. ‘Soon after that, Frank Ragano called me,’ Partin says, 'and he said he could get Garrison off my back. In return he wanted a signed affidavit saying that I lied in Hoffa's trial. Naturally, I didn't sign. But later it came out that Ragano was in touch with both Traficante and Marcello during that period of time.'" (pp. 178-180)

Anthony Summers:

"Years earlier, summoned before the Assassinations Committee to answer questions about the Kennedy assassination, Marcello had told congressmen his business in life was selling and distributing tomatoes. Comic dialogue aside, Marcello gave his answers to allegations that he schemed to murder the President. He acknowledged that David Ferrie had worked on his deportation case and for one of his lawyers. He denied, however, that Ferrie actually worked for him. Asked if he had ever spoken of murdering the President, Marcello replied, 'Positive not--never said anything like that.' (. . .) 

"In 1979 Congress' Assassinations committee announced that 'extensive investigation led it to conclude that the most likely family bosses of organized crime to have participated in such a unilateral assassination plan were Carlos Marcello and Santo Traficante.' The Committee found--as we have noted--that both Mafia leaders had 'motive, means and opportunity.' It observed dryly that 'it was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity.'

"The emphasis, as the reader knows from this book should be on the word 'direct.' A mass of information ties key characters in the assassination story to Marcello or his organization. The FBI that put Marcello behind bars in the 1980s, is a very different organization from J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau. As a result of its undercover operations against Marcello we now have some further fragmentary knowledge. Joseph Hauser, a controversial key witness at the Marcello trial in New Orleans, has claimed that he managed to lure Marcello into discussing the assassination.

"According to Hauser, an FBI plant, the conversations took place in the spring and summer of 1979. They arose from discussion with Marcello of New Orleans press stories about the assassination--including coverage of the Assassinations Committee Report. According to Hauser, Marcello readily admitted having known Oswald and his uncle Charles Durrett. He said Oswald worked as a runner in his betting operation during 1963. (. . .) In summary, there is compelling circumstantial evidence indicating Marcello's possible involvement in the Kennedy assassination. To say otherwise is to reject at least nineteen witnesses and informants as fabricators, and so reject the web of interconnections between the Marcello apparatus and Oswald and Ruby. Yet that is what the Justice Department did." (pp. 363-365)

Stefano Vaccara:

"Just two days after the Kennedy assassination, the mystery man that Garrison was told was involved in the assassination, David Ferrie, was named, but instead of paving the way to Carlos Marcello, as one would expect, the DA avoided any investigation of the Mafia chief. Garrison steered the investigation in a different direction. Why?

"David Ferrie was a former airline pilot who years before had a teenage Lee Harvey Oswald as his pupil in an air national guard training camp. Ferrie reappeared in 1963 as a very well paid investigator for Marcello to assist his attorneys in his legal defense against Robert Kennedy's federal agents seeking to deport the Mafia boss from the United States.

"The same David Ferrie was also an instructor for anti-Castro Cubans and spent the summer of 1963 in the company of his young friend Lee Harvey Oswald, who had returned to his home town of New Orleans. Americans often forget that the former marine was born and raised in the narrow streets of the French Quarter where everything revolved around entertainment and gambling under Mafia control and where Marcello was king.

"But neither in the Oliver Stone film [JFK] nor in Jim Garrison's inquiry does one find any trace of Carlos Marcello and his connection to David Ferrie or to Oswald's uncle Charles 'Dutz' Murret who had married Marguerite's sister.

"Kennedy's assassin was born without a father and Murret had played that role. Lee, with his mother Marguerite, was to live in his uncle's house for extended periods. How could Dutz Murret support two families? The Warren Commission never asked the uncle and father figure of Lee Harvey Oswald that question.

"Actually Dutz made his living collecting illegal gambling debts for Carlos Marcello, allowing him to support his kids, and occasionally his nephew Lee. Therefore, just a few days after the Kennedy assassination, it would have been a simple matter to connect Marcello to Oswald through both Ferrie and his uncle Dutz. (. . .)

"Stone actually manages to come up with a worse performance [in JFK] than the Warren Commission in ignoring Marcello. He actually makes the Mafia boss look innocent in a city where the simple question 'Who would instantly benefit from Kennedy's demise?' found a ready answer. The truth about Dallas is in New Orleans, but not through Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone: unfortunately an Oscar-winning film that could have cleared up world opinion about such a confusing criminal act riddled with conspiracy theories fell into yet another trap. 

"This writer believes that Garrison, while putting the spotlight on New Orleans, added even more confusion when the facts should have been clear and the truth about the plot organized by Carlos Marcello would have been easy to demonstrate. In 1968 Garrison was questioned by the Select Committee that was attempting to find out whether or not Marcello was involved in the Dallas assassination. He was asked why he had not concentrated on the Mafia boss in the course of his investigation, since many people in New Orleans were well aware that he was the sworn enemy of the Kennedys and that in order to survive sooner or later he would have attempted to 'get the pebble out his shoe'. Garrison gave an evasive answer, repeating what the FBI legal office in Washington had been saying for years: Marcello was not a powerful Mafia boss controlling Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. He was just a tomato salesman.

"At that point could Marcello, having had police chiefs, governors, senators, and judges on his payroll for years, be suspected of also having influenced Jim Garrison? The ironclad DA, who was ready to take on the White House to solve the JFK assassination, would never even get close to the Louisiana boss in the course of his investigation." (pp. 4-6)

John Davis:

"[I]t can be said with some assurance that the underworld and its political pawns and supporters knew early in 1967 that Edward Becker had pointed a finger at Carlos Marcello and Johnny Roselli had pointed a finger at Marcello's friend Santos Trafficante as possible conspirators in a plot to kill President Kennedy.

"Then who comes along at about this time but New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, an admitted acquaintance of Marcello's, with his explosive allegations suggesting not an organized crime conspiracy but one involving principally the CIA.

"Scholars of the Kennedy assassination have since pointed out that Garrison had good reason not to implicate organized crime in the assassination, for he had always enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with Carlos Marcello. Garrison had made Marcello happy by publicly insisting that organized crime did not exist in New Orleans and by consistently ignoring Marcello's vast and blatantly open gambling network. And Marcello had contented Garrison by doing him such favors as having his Las Vegas associate Mario Marino provide him with free hotel accommodations and substantial casino credits whenever the New Orleans DA sought weekend amusement in Nevada, and arranging for him to buy an expensive home in an affluent New Orleans suburb at a cut-rate price from one of Marcello's major business associations, Frank Occhipinti. 

"So how was it that Garrison decided to launch an investigation of the Kennedy assassination precisely when serious allegations were being made that organized crime was involved in the murder?

"There are strong indications, never confirmed by the parties concerned, that Jim Garrison was persuaded to reopen the case by two Louisiana politicians close to Carlos Marcello: Representative Hale Boggs and Senator Russell Long. According to former Justice Department official Walter Sheridan, Long induced Garrison to believe that either the CIA or the Cuban government might have had a hand in the assassination by telling Garrison of certain privileged information he claimed to have acquired as a senator from confidential intelligence sources linking Oswald to both pro-Castro Cubans and the agency. Congressman Boggs, who had been on the Warren Commission, is said to have voiced suspicions of CIA complicity to Garrison based on his conviction that the CIA had withheld vital information from the commission. Was it a mere coincidence that both Senator Long and Congressman Boggs enjoyed close personal relationships with Carlos Marcello and had benefitted considerably over the years from Marcello's generous contributions to their political campaigns?

"True to Boggs's and Long's suspicions, Jim Garrison directed his reinvestigation of the Kennedy assassination toward the possibility of CIA complicity by eventually indicting, to nearly everyone's bewilderment, Clay Shaw, a prominent New Orleans business man with past connections to the CIA, for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy with no hard evidence to back up his charges. (. . .) [W]hat did Marcello think about Garrison's pointing a finger at David Ferrie? We can only speculate that if Marcello had been involved with Ferrie in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy, he would have been very disturbed over the prospect of Ferrie being cross-examined in a courtroom. 

"David Ferrie was found dead in the early morning hours of February 22 (. . .) Dr. Nicholas Chetta, the New Orleans Parish coroner, performed the autopsy on Ferrie and reported that he had died of natural causes, specifically from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a 'berry aneurysm,' or weak point on a blood vessel, at the base of the brain. Ferrie's cerebral hemorrhage, Dr. Chetta speculated, had probably been brought on by stress. (. . .) The press, both national and international, was almost unanimously skeptical of the autopsy report. Most serious observers of the case Garrison was unfolding in New Orleans believed David Ferrie had been deliberately silenced, just as Lee Harvey Oswald had been silenced a little over three years before. (. . .) [skipping over description of a known method used by a Latin American professional in the assassination business causing exactly this manner of death without detection because gruesome—gd] (. . .) Aaron Kohn was in New Orleans in 1967, pursuing his impending investigation of Carlos Marcello, and recalls today that he too was very skeptical of the official version of Ferrie's death. 'Coroners in Louisiana are almost all corrupt,' he told me, 'and Ferrie's coroner, Dr. Nicholas Chetta, was no exception. Chetta had already produced several dubious autopsy reports. Whoever had reason to kill David Ferrie could easily have paid Dr. Chetta to report that Ferrie died of natural causes.'

"But who would have had reason to kill Ferrie on the eve of his testimony at Garrison's trial of Clay Shaw? The CIA? Not likely. Garrison's case against the CIA was known to be weak, and Ferrie had never had strong ties with the agency. At the most, he had been an occasional informant; the agency denied it had ever had anything to do with him. No, if Carlos Marcello and David Ferrie were involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, then Marcello would have had the most to lose from David Ferrie on the witness stand or David Ferrie plea bargaining for his freedom. Marcello would have had little difficulty finding someone in his organization willing to do the job on Ferrie, and he would have known the right man to approach Dr. Chetta about falsifying the autopsy report. It is worth noting that Dr. Chetta himself died at age 50, a little over a year after Ferrie's death, from an apparent heart attack. (. . .)

"In the end, though, Garrison's counterfeit investigation of the Kennedy assassination accomplished what its instigators probably hoped it would. It all but wrecked the movement to get to the bottom of the Kennedy assasination, and it successfully diverted attention from Carlos Marcello. With the Garrison case in ruins and J. Edgar Hoover refusing to investigate the Becker and Roselli allegations, eleven more years would have to elapse before the Kennedy assassination case would be reopened and Carlos Marcello singled out as a prime suspect in what had by then become known as the crime of the century." (pp. 367-375)

David Scheim:

"By the year 1967, the lone-nut theory of the Warren Commission had been trampled to a new low of credibility by an onslought of independent critical research. A Congressional resolution calling for a reexamining of the Warren Commission findings had been introduced with the support of several prominent Americans. And the American public, which had accepted the lone-assassin hypothesis almost universally in 1963, rejected it by a three-to-two margin in a 1966 Louis Harris poll.

"But critical review of the Kennedy case was put on hold in February 1967, following the dramatic announcement of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that he had uncovered an assassination conspiracy. In the wake of Garrison's sensational allegations, Congressional calls for a new investigation were soon forgotten. And thinking the D.A. had a genuine lead, many leading assassination probers rushed down to New Orleans to jump on his bandwagon.

"Through the efforts of these researchers, a good deal of legitimate information was exchanged and disseminated from Garrison's office. Yet as Garrison's case unfolded, his specific accusations became increasingly outlandish and the thrust of his efforts increasingly questionable. Especially bizarre was Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw, who became his prime culprit. A retired director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart, Shaw was a soft-spoken liberal who devoted most of his time to restoring homes in the Old French Quarter and writing plays. It took the jury less than an hour to find Shaw innocent of Garrison's extravagant accusations. As summarized by Walter Sheridan, a former aide to Robert Kennedy who investigated the New Orleans probe for NBC, Garrison's effort was 'an enormous fraud,' involving 'bribery and intimidation of witnesses.' The particulars were reported by Newsweek, the New York Times, Look magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, an NBC News special, and the book Counterplotby Edward J. Epstein. The methods, as documented in these sources, included promised or transacted bribes of cash, gifts, an airline job, financing for a private club, heroin and a paid vacation in Florida. Garrison and his aides also resorted to threats of imprisonment and death, a plot to plant evidence in Clay Shaw's home and indoctrination of witnesses to parrot invented charges under the influence of hypnosis and drugs.

"Although Garrison made extravagant charges against an assortment of Cuban exiles, CIA agents, Minutemen, White Russians and Nazis, he conspicuously avoided any reference to one prime assassination suspect: the Mafia. For example, in discussing testimony concerning Ruby's anti-Castro activities, which he quoted at length, Garrison described Ruby as a ‘CIA bagman’ and an 'employee of the CIA.' But Garrison said nothing about Ruby's organized crime involvement. The cited testimony, in contrast, contains not one allusion to the CIA. Yet it is replete with references to the 'Mafia' and the 'syndicate' in connection with both Ruby's Cuban activities and his night club operations. Amazingly, Garrison also refrained from mentioning the close and portentous ties of his key suspect, David Ferrie, to Mafia boss Carlos Marcello.

"But such ties were of little concern to Garrison, who declared on national television that Marcello was a 'respectable businessman' and who stated that there was no organized crime in New Orleans. According to Garrison, 'people worry about the crime "syndicate," but the real danger is the political establishment, power amassing against the individual.' Skeptical of Garrison's professed ignorance about organized crime, a team of Life magazine reporters once asked him about Frank Timphony, a notorious Syndicate figure in Garrison's own district. Garrison claimed never to have heard of him and, carrying the act further, placed a call to an aide in the reporters' presence. The Garrison aide 'promptly assured' his boss that Timphony was 'one of the biggest bookies in New Orleans.'

"It became apparent, however, that the district attorney's knowledge of organized crime was quite direct and intimate. Garrison's hand-picked chief investigator during his first years as district attorney was Pershing Gervais, an admitted associate of Carlos Marcello. Gervais was formerly a New Orleans policeman but was fired after twice stealing the payoff money awaiting distribution to his fellow officers. In 1967, Life magazine reported that Garrison had been given free lodging and a $5,000 line of credit on three trips to the Mob-controlled Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. One of Garrison's tabs was personally signed by Marcello lieutenant Mario Marino, who took the Fifth Amendment when questioned about the matter. And on June 1969, as Life subsequently reported, Marcello bagman Vic Carona died after suffering a heart attack in Garrison's home during a political meeting. 

"Throughout his career, Garrison demonstrated his fidelity to his reported friend, Carlos Marcello. This loyalty was exhibited in the early 1960s, when Garrison conducted a cleanup of the Bourbon Street night club district after being elected district attorney as a reform candidate; his raids deliberately avoided the clubs controlled by Marcello. From 1965 through 1969, Garrison won just seven cases against Marcello gangsters. Yet he dismissed 84 such cases, including one charge of attempted murder, three of kidnapping and one of manslaughter. 

"In 1971, Garrison was on the receiving end of an indictment--on the federal charge of accepting $50,000 a year in payoffs to protect illegal gambling. The tax evasion case against Garrison became 'airtight,' as evaluated by U.S. Attorney G. Gallinghouse, when six of Garrison's codefendants turned state's evidence against him. The jury was presented with first-hand bribes to Garrison and with actual tape recordings to the bribe transactions. But Garrison was acquitted, possibly with the help of reported bribes of $50,000 and $10,000 offered to rig his trial and swipe evidence. The outcome was reminiscent of Marcello's acquittal on a fraud charge on November 22, 1963, after a juror had been offered a $1,000 bribe and the key witness against him set up to be murdered.

"Although Garrison, now a judge, vigorously denies any corrupt links to organized crime, his congenial relationship with the Marcello fiefdom has been repeatedly demonstrated in both his conduct and contacts, as reported in several sources. Indeed, as recently as 1987, Garrison was seen dining at La Louisianne restaurant in New Orleans with two of Carlos Marcello's brothers, Sammy and Joe, Jr. The latter is allegedly the acting Mafia boss of Louisiana now that Carlos is in jail.

"Given Garrison's coziness with the Marcello Organization and his strange blindness toward Mob leads in his Kennedy assassination probe, it is reasonable to question his motive in pursuing it. Indeed, the possibility that Garrison deliberately tried to obscure Mafia ties to the case is indicated by his false charges against an Edgar Eugene Bradley of California, described in Los Angeles files as 'the man Garrison mistook for Eugene Hale Brading.' There were enough similarities between Bradley and Brading for Garrison's accusations to confound reports about Brading. But to a professional investigator, the distinction between Bradley, an uninvolved Caliornian, and Dal-Tex felon Brading was apparent.

"A further incident raised the possibility of Mob input into Garrison's Kennedy probe even more sharply. On March 3, 1967, during a campaign by the Mob and Teamsters to spring the latter's former boss, Jimmy Hoffa, from prison, James 'Buddy' Gill tried to bribe government witness Edward Partin to invalidate his testimony against Hoffa. Gill, the intermediary in this Mob ploy, had been an administrative assistant and close associate of former Senator Russell Long. Long, in turn, was an old political ally of Garrison who assisted the Marcello-coordinated effort to spring Hoffa.

"During Gill's approach to Partin, apparently to apply additional pressure, Gill informed him that Garrison was going to subpoena Partin in his assassination probe. And on June 23, 1967, Baton Rouge Radio Station WJBO broadcast that Partin had been 'under investigation by the New Orleans District Attorney's Office in connection with the Kennedy Assassination investigation.' The station quoted a Garrison assistant as saying that a man drove Oswald and Ruby during alleged encounters in New Orleans and that Garrison's office was 'checking the possibility it was Partin.' 

"Garrison thus exhibited the same underworld affinity as assassination suspects David Ferrie, Lee Oswald and Eugene Brading." (pp. 70-74).

[Lawrence Schnapf]

The conventional response to this theory is that "mafia could not control the autospy or the coverup".  The response is the the government coverup was unnecessary for Marcello's plan to succeed  as he had plenty of experience using intermediaries and cutouts to prevent shooting from being traced back to him.  Of course, he may have suspected that Hoover would lead a coverup because of what they had on Hoover (rigged horse races by costello, his secret personal life and his sitting on prior warnings of potential mob threats that would have cast FBI and him in bad light).   

[Lawrence Schnapf]

the Two John Davis books paint a convincing picture to me that Marcello was behind the assassination and the most sensible explanation. I would even suggest that for those Lone Nut defenders who like to misquote Occam's Razor as support for the official story, the marcello theory is actually the best argument.  

[Benjamin Cole]

Well..tough to prove a negative, that is that Marcello did not order the hit on JFK. Same with Dulles, Angleton, or the JMWAVE-Miami CIA-Cubans. 

However, both John Newman and Dan Hardway (serious researchers) have concluded the CIA was running and manipulating LHO, going back to Russia, up through New Orleans and the Mexico City trip, and then into Dallas.  The CIA built the LHO biography, and even organized the LHO meeting with KGB agent Kostikoff (The WWIII virus).  All of this is beyond the ken of the Mob. 

And yes, additionally, bungling the JFK autopsy beyond repair, or the whole WC cover-up, is beyond the Mob (at least I hope!). 

It may be the Mob "got lucky" and unwittingly piggybacked on this LHO biography, and somehow looped LHO into a plot to murder JFK. But why would LHO help the Mob murder JFK? It just does not fit. 

Or, it may be Johnny Roselli wangled some money to help finance JMWAVERs.  But I doubt much money was needed. One guy with a semi-automatic in the Dal-Tex building, and a diversionary gunshot or two from a snub-nose .38 at the Grassy Knoll area. Everyone agrees to fire when the limo approaches the Stemmons Freeway sign.  LHO, believing he was part of a false-flag op, fires but intentionally misses. 

I think the Mob was retained to rub LHO out. But perhaps again by the CIA-JMWave crowd. 

The HSCA, unfortunately, went a long way down the Mob route (Blakey was a mob hunter, then). But even Blakey has come to believe that Eladio Del Valle and Hermininio Diaz (CIA assets) were the assassins. 

 

[Denny Zartman]

This forum is going downhill fast.

The mob didn't set up fall guys in advance in multiple states and multiple countries. That was not their M.O.

Revealing that Marcello had JFK killed in 1963 could not possibly affect United States national security in 2022.

[Denny Zartman]

3 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

he had plenty of experience using intermediaries and cutouts to prevent shooting from being traced back to him.

It's no trick to blame a shooting on the person who pulled the trigger.

Please cite some examples when the Mob set up a fall guy in advance in multiple states and multiple countries?

3 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

he may have suspected that Hoover would lead a coverup because of what they had on Hoover (rigged horse races by costello, his secret personal life and his sitting on prior warnings of potential mob threats that would have cast FBI and him in bad light).   

And is Hoover leading that cover up today? Of course not.

To believe the mob did it means believing that the U.S. Government assisted in setting up the scapegoat in advance; leapt immediately into action to cover it up after the assassination and protect the mob; and then kept that cover up going for 58 years and counting.

Lucky. That's what all successful criminals rely on to get away with their crimes, right? Luck.

[Denny Zartman]

 @Greg Doudna .

Edited March 10, 2022 by Denny Zartman

[Denny Zartman]

9 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Here is the question: what is the block among what seem to be a majority of JFK assassination conspiracy researchers, from going for closure of the case in terms of a framework of this solution?

It's because the mob did not have the power to go into the Bethesda autopsy room. Period.

What is it going to take for you to understand that basic fact?

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Could it be that the John F. Kennedy assassination already has a basic solution, with no need for another sixty years of mystery?

 

Another sixty years of mystery? What are you talking about Greg? The JFK assassination was solved decades ago and the solution has only gotten more refined since then. The CIA did it with apparently some military, Secret Service, and DPD compliance. Only the CIA could have orchestrated the fake Mexico City trip that was used to create a Cuban/Russian false flag operation and to frame Oswald.

 

14 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Straw man: Marcello could not control the autopsy, the photos and the medical, could not forge and plant all the physical evidence etc and etc., therefore Marcello did not do it. (By that logic nobody killed Kennedy; false premises.)

 

What? The CIA was incapable of doing what you suggest Marcello did for the assassination plot? And the FBI was incapable of doing what you suggest Marcello did for the coverup? How can you possibly believe those things?

As for Marcello, why would the US government cover up an assassination carried out by the Mafia? And continue to actively to do so for sixty years? It simply makes no sense. In contrast, it makes perfect sense to continue covering up the fact that the CIA did it. As much as many people hate the CIA, even many of those folks are afraid what might happen if it were dismantled for its crimes while the KGB's successor agencies' continue operating.

 

[Michael Crane]

Need help with an answer for another forum.I remember reading a long time ago that the mafia had the goods on J.Edgar Hoover.The goods consisted of J.Edgar Hoover in compromising gay photos at a party.This allowed the mafia to blackmail Hoover.Was it Marcello that had the goods? Maybe even Gianacana?

Anybody else read the rumors that I have read?

Edited March 10, 2022 by Michael Crane

[Greg Doudna]

10 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

It's because the mob did not have the power to go into the Bethesda autopsy room. Period.

What is it going to take for you to understand that basic fact?

What about the Bethesda autopsy specifically do you see that is exculpatory of Marcello? What is the train of logic there? Why is control of the autopsy of a murder victim a necessary component of a conspiracy to murder, in a case in which there is no attempt to disguise it was murder caused from gunshot wounds? 

[Sean Coleman]

2 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

Need help with an answer for another forum.I remember reading a long time ago that the mafia had the goods on J.Edgar Hoover.The goods consisted of J.Edgar Hoover in compromising gay photos at a party.This allowed the mafia to blackmail Hoover.Was it Marcello that had the goods? Maybe even Gianacana?

Anybody else read the rumors that I have read?

Claim made by Susan Rosenstiel to Anthony Summers-she’s not all that reliable by all accounts 

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

Need help with an answer for another forum.I remember reading a long time ago that the mafia had the goods on J.Edgar Hoover.The goods consisted of J.Edgar Hoover in compromising gay photos at a party.This allowed the mafia to blackmail Hoover.Was it Marcello that had the goods? Maybe even Gianacana?

Anybody else read the rumors that I have read?

See this video.  Seems to collect all known "compromising photo" testimony.

https://archive.org/details/TheSecretFileonJEdgarHoover

[Michael Crane]

Thanks guys.I was away from my computer,so I couldn't say thank you.

Further research shows that it was probably Giancana.

Thanks for the help.

 

 

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Another sixty years of mystery? What are you talking about Greg? The JFK assassination was solved decades ago and the solution has only gotten more refined since then. The CIA did it with apparently some military, Secret Service, and DPD compliance. Only the CIA could have orchestrated the fake Mexico City trip that was used to create a Cuban/Russian false flag operation and to frame Oswald.

It is a matter of record that elements of the US government cooperated with mobsters in assassinations of foreign public figures in Latin America. Why rule out the same in the assassination of Kennedy?

If the identity of the killer of Oswald could be known, might that be a clue as to who killed Kennedy?