Ultimate Sacrifice by Thom Hartmann & Lamar Waldron

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Since I've argued this point with Tim Gratz and others over the past few years, I feel compelled to raise the same points here. The assumption that the Kennedys sought Castro's murder is based solely upon the oral recollections of CIA personnel, who had their own agenda in floating this canard.

This is of course true. That is the way “plausible deniability” works.

It is also how "selective briefing" works, another arrow in CIA's quiver. When the Agency discloses to interested parties - including its own DCI, as in McCone's case regarding murdering Castro - only that which it elects to share, it precludes effective decision-making and meaningful oversight of its activities, which is precisely why it is employed.

A few cases in point may illustrate the unfortunate results:

Eisenhower specifically forbade U2 overflights of the USSR beyond a certain date in 1960, yet someone within CIA's chain of command authorized the Gary Powers flight. This act led to spectacularly negative results, the very eventuality Eisenhower had hoped to avoid. Was this CIA incompetence, or a case of deliberately disobeying a Presidential order?

When Eisenhower authorized the intial Bay of Pigs plans, it was significantly different to what eventually transpired. The Invasion became official on March 17, 1960, when President Eisenhower authored a paper titled, "A Program of Covert Action Agency Against the Castro Regime". According to the 1967 CIA Inspector General's report [which was prepared only for internal consumption], Eisenhower authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to undertake the following:

"a. Formation of a Cuban exile organization to attract Cuban loyalties, to direct opposition activities, and to provide cover for Agency operations.

b. A propaganda offensive in the name of the opposition.

c. Creation inside Cuba of a clandestine intelligence collection and action apparatus to be responsive to the direction of the exile organization.

d. Development outside Cuba of a small paramilitary force to be introduced into Cuba to organize, train, and lead resistance groups."

Eisenhower also approved the budget for the operation, which totaled $4, 400,000. This included "Political action, $950,000; propaganda, $1,700,000; paramilitary, $1,500,000; intelligence collection, $250,000."

While it is unsurprising that this authorization didn't include mention of assassination, what we should find astounding is what it does depict: more money for propaganda than actual paramilitary assistance.

After the Bay of Pigs debacle, when Eisenhower expressed that what he had authorized was far smaller than what was finally launched against Cuba, he was right. He disowned the final result because it was not what he had authorized. So who did authorize the escalation in the interim? Certainly not Kennedy, who - according to those in his inner circle - had wanted to maintain the executive privilege of cancelling the invasion if he elected to do so. As depicted by O'Donnell and Powers, CIA tried to pull a bait-and-switch on Kennedy, in essence directly disobeying his orders in furtherance of its own plans:

"The President said then that the plan was so advanced when he came into office in January that it seemed almost impossible to cancel it. The brigade of fourteen hundred anti-Castro Cubans had been in training under CIA officers on a plantation in Guatamala for several months; they were fully armed and eager and ready to go into action. 'If we decided now to call the whole thing off,' the President said, 'I don't know if we could go down there and take the guns away from them.' The President was also under pressure not to postpone the takeoff date of the invasion force any longer. The government of Guatemala was worried about the presence of one thousand four hundred armed foreigners in its country. The President of Guatemala had asked President Kennedy to get the Cubans out of his republic before the end of April, which was then less than two weeks away. Intelligence reports said that Castro was about to receive MIG jets from the Soviet Union, along with Cuban pilots trained in Czechoslovakia to fly those fighter planes. The rebels had to stage their attack before the Russian planes were available for duty in Cuba. The President said he had finally agreed with some reluctance to approve the plan and the date of the landings, Monday, April 17, after the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff accepted his strict stipulation that no American forces could take part in the invasion. He mentioned that Dean Rusk had showed a lack of enthusiasm for the project but was willing to go along with it, provided that the President's insistence on no American military participation was scrupulously observed."

......................

"As much as he insisted on taking all of the blame and responsibility for the Bay of Pigs defeat in public statements, President Kennedy felt free in private talks with a few of us to point out the big flaw in the military plan of the operation. He wondered why the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA had expected the small landing force of one thousand four hundred rebels to survive in Cuba without help and reinforcements from one of the only two possible sources--either from inside the island, from internal uprisings, sabotage and armed attacks on the Castro forces by underground revolutionists timed to coordinate with the landings, or from outside military support by American troops and air cover. When the Joint Chiefs and the CIA agreed to the Presiden'ts strict ruling against American military participation in the assault, he assumed that plans had been set for a widespread uprising against the Castro government inside Cuba.

"Soon after the collapse of the invasion attempt, when he began to find out the details, the President was shocked to discover that there had been no plans for a coordinated revolt in Cuba. The leaders of the organized anti-Castro underground movement in Havana did not even know the date of the landings. 'Everybody in Miami knew exactly when those poor fellows were going to hit the beaches,' President Kennedy said to us, 'but the only people in Cuba who knew about it were the ones who were working in Castro's office.' The exiled Cuban leaders in New York and Miami, who were supposed to take over the government in Havana if the invasion succeeded, said that the CIA had discouraged them from alerting their followers in Cuba on the grounds that spreading such information would endanger the secrecy of the expedition.

"At the same time, the CIA officers who were working in Guatamala with the leaders of the invasion force assured them that they would be getting strong American military support. The Cubans were told that the Navy's aircraft carrier Essex would be standing offshore near the Bay of Pigs, as indeed it was, and that U.S. Marines and Navy jets would be available when needed.

"The absence of any preparations for an organized uprising in Cuba, and the assurances of military support given to the rebels in the landing force, led President Kennedy to a bitter conclusion: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA must have been assuming all along that the President would become so worried at the last minute about the loss of his own prestige that he would drop his restriction against the use of U.S. forces and send the Marines and the Navy jets into the action.

"How else, the President asked us, could the Joint Chiefs approve such a plan? 'They were sure I'd give in to them and send the go-ahead order to the Essex,' he said one day to Dave Powers. 'They couldn't believe that a new President like me wouldn't panic and try to save his own face. Well, they had me figured all wrong.'...

"As General Douglas MacArthur remarked privately to the President, he was lucky to have learned so much about the value of his military advise from an operation like the Bay of Pigs disaster, where the strategic cost was small...

"The Bay of Pigs experience brought several significant changes in the Kennedy administration. The operations and authority of the CIA which had had a free hand under Eisehnower, were limited and tightened. Allen Dulles retired with Kennedy's sympathetic good wishes, and was replaced by John McCone, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. The White House staff became more involved in foreign and defense affairs. McGeorge Bundy's office was moved from the Executive Office building across the stret to the basement of the White House, close to the President's communications center, where he took on more responsibility in military intelligence. General Maxwell Taylor was called out of retirement to be Kennedy's military advisor, and later became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And Bobby Kennedy took on a larger general role as his brother's personal troubleshooter...

"But nobody told President Kennedy what do do. Bobby knew with a brother's instinct just how far he could go in arguing against the President before running into a cold and final wall of disapproval. The President was much the toughest of the Kennedy brothers..."

We've seen this time and again, over the decades, and it is clear the Agency has acted in direct violation of the sitting President's wishes in a number of instances. What makes you believe this wasn't true of the kill-Castro plots during the Kennedy years, aside from CIA's own self-serving assertions? Can you cite a single person, who wasn't CIA or a part of said CIA plots, who confirms CIA's assertions that the Kennedys were responsible for pursuing Castro's murder? If not, doesn't it give you pause to reflect on the authenticity and veracity of such assertions?

If it is true of JFK, it is also true of all the presidents that were in office during the “638 CIA attempts to kill Castro” (Fabian Escalante).

This is spurious. The Agency would have no reason to hide its nefarious activities from Presidents whom the Agency knew would condone such shenanigans. To argue otherwise is to assert that all Presidents, and their respective foreign policies, are identical and interchangeable. It is not so.

Were Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton kept in the dark as well?

This is a false dichotomy. As noted above, some Presidents seemed far more friendly to "executive action" than others. Eisenhower seemed to have no qualms about employing it against Lumumba, but there is no record he green-lighted similar plans against Castro. Of course, by the time those plans were hatched, Eisenhower was in failing health and largely out of the loop, having deputized his White House Action Officer, Vice President Nixon, to oversee the development of what became the Bay of Pigs. One may wish to keep that fact in mind when trying to parse the "whose Bay of Pigs thing" over which Nixon festishized in his taped Oval Office discussions regarding Helms, et al.

According to CIA agents, and this includes those who are not linked to the assassination of JFK, Robert Kennedy played a dominant role in pushing the agency to “take out Castro”. Is it possible that RFK knew but JFK did not? Maybe, but in my view, unlikely.

"According to CIA agents" is the key portion of that assertion. Why do you find it so difficult to entertain the notion that CIA attempted an end run against both Kennedy brothers, particularly when the Attorney General was already on the record as having forbidden such activities once he became aware of them, even by CIA's own admission?

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

One doesn't govern with the elected representatives that you wish you had in Congress; but must govern with those who have been elected. [With apologies to Donald Rumsfeld for the paraphrasing.] Were the Kennedys to refrain from dealing with racist politicians, they'd have garnered support from a handful of elected representatives in each party, and no legislation would have been passed.

Let us remember accurately the political topography of 1963 and just who populated the corridors of power at the time. "Ultimate Sacrifice" doesn't seem to do so; let us not make the same mistake.

Of course, it is necessary to do deals in order to get elected. The point is, how far do you go?

Those of us living in a parliamentary democracy, accustomed to "minority" governments, are perhaps more familiar than our US cousins with how legislation is fashioned by consensus and compromise when a government lacks a clear majority to pursue its agenda. The point is not just what deals are done to get elected, but how one gets deals done after being elected without a clear mandate.

You also have to consider the consequences if you have no intention of keeping these promises. For example, JFK had meetings with Richard Bissell and Allen Dulles before he was elected.

And when asked whether he'd shown either candidate favouritism in his briefings regarding the forthcoming Bay of Pigs plans, Dulles replied that each candidate had been given the same information. However, this was wholly disingenuous since Nixon didn't need any information, as he'd been a prime architect of the plans. How likely is it that Kennedy would have taken so hawkish a position against Nixon in the debates were he in possession of all the facts, only to then be faced with carrying out a program about which he had so many misgivings? It is clear that somebody's recollection is faulty. When faced with two divergent recitations of events, we are forced to choose between CIA's version and that offered by the Kennedy White House insiders. Given that the former is a suspect in murdering the latter, I am uncomfortable accepting uncritically what CIA personnel have to say. Those who disagree are free to do so.

JFK promised to take a hard-line on Cuba. In fact, during the presidential election, he attacked the Eisenhower and Nixon for being soft on communism in regards to Cuba. In return, JFK was told about the plans to arrange for anti-Castro exiles to invade Cuba. I suspect he was also told about the plans to assassinate Castro just before the invasion. Even though the CIA have always denied this was part of the plan, it does not make much sense without combining the two actions.

If JFK was unprepared to authorize US military participation in the invasion, do you really think he'd risk the potentially embarrassing blowback of it becoming publicly revealed his government had tried to kill Castro as part of the invasion? I have little doubt CIA planned to kill Castro, and that this was the "something" which Dulles publicly admitted they had counted on to happen which didn't transpire. Whether Kennedy knew about it is another matter entirely.

JFK also did deals with the Texas oil industry, promising to leave their “oil depletion allowance” alone.

And it was left alone, despite discussions to the contrary having been conducted during his tenure.

JFK also sent RFK down to the Deep South to promise no legislation on civil rights.

And, to his eternal discredit, he would have been as good as his word had various previously unforseen events not forced his hand.

Maybe, his father even made promises on his behalf to the Mafia.

The problem about making promises is that if you break them you will be punished, either by the electorate or by the pressure groups you have let down.

One also has to look at the record of the JFK administration. JFK did go along with the Bay of Pigs invasion.

And thereafter complained bitterly that he'd been sold a pig in a poke, as subsequent forensic investigations demonstrably proved was true.

Nor did he make principled decisions about civil rights. As RFK explained, JFK sacked Harris Wofford, chairman of the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights (1960-1962), because he was too passionate about the subject of civil rights legislation.

Thank you, for this illustrates precisely what I stated above.

Most importantly, JFK and RFK put Martin Luther King under a lot of pressure to call of his civil rights demonstrations. The same tactic was used against the leaders of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) who were causing bad publicity for the Democratic Party in the Deep South with their Freedom Rides. Thank goodness they took no notice of JFK. The truth is that the main reason black civil rights were achieved was because of the actions of people like Martin Luther King, James Farmer and Bayard Rustin and not because of the views of so-called liberal white politicians.

Whatever private sympathies the Kennedys may have had for the civil rights movement, they only became public when King, et al, forced the Kennedys' hand. For me, this is the most damning condemnation of the Kennedy administration, a fact I trust will be borne in mind the next time somebody wishes to accuse me of trying to whitewash JFK's legacy.

As the people of Iraq are currently finding out, you have to fight to get freedom and democracy. It is not something that you can have imposed on you.

Which is precisely what the Kennedys discovered the hard way when troops were called out - as they had been in the Eisenhower administration - to preserve public order in the face of race-based insurrection.

[Evan Marshall]

One doesn't govern with the elected representatives that you wish you had in Congress; but must govern with those who have been elected. [With apologies to Donald Rumsfeld for the paraphrasing.] Were the Kennedys to refrain from dealing with racist politicians, they'd have garnered support from a handful of elected representatives in each party, and no legislation would have been passed.

Let us remember accurately the political topography of 1963 and just who populated the corridors of power at the time. "Ultimate Sacrifice" doesn't seem to do so; let us not make the same mistake.

Of course, it is necessary to do deals in order to get elected. The point is, how far do you go?

Those of us living in a parliamentary democracy, accustomed to "minority" governments, are perhaps more familiar than our US cousins with how legislation is fashioned by consensus and compromise when a government lacks a clear majority to pursue its agenda. The point is not just what deals are done to get elected, but how one gets deals done after being elected without a clear mandate.

You also have to consider the consequences if you have no intention of keeping these promises. For example, JFK had meetings with Richard Bissell and Allen Dulles before he was elected.

And when asked whether he'd shown either candidate favouritism in his briefings regarding the forthcoming Bay of Pigs plans, Dulles replied that each candidate had been given the same information. However, this was wholly disingenuous since Nixon didn't need any information, as he'd been a prime architect of the plans. How likely is it that Kennedy would have taken so hawkish a position against Nixon in the debates were he in possession of all the facts, only to then be faced with carrying out a program about which he had so many misgivings? It is clear that somebody's recollection is faulty. When faced with two divergent recitations of events, we are forced to choose between CIA's version and that offered by the Kennedy White House insiders. Given that the former is a suspect in murdering the latter, I am uncomfortable accepting uncritically what CIA personnel have to say. Those who disagree are free to do so.

JFK promised to take a hard-line on Cuba. In fact, during the presidential election, he attacked the Eisenhower and Nixon for being soft on communism in regards to Cuba. In return, JFK was told about the plans to arrange for anti-Castro exiles to invade Cuba. I suspect he was also told about the plans to assassinate Castro just before the invasion. Even though the CIA have always denied this was part of the plan, it does not make much sense without combining the two actions.

If JFK was unprepared to authorize US military participation in the invasion, do you really think he'd risk the potentially embarrassing blowback of it becoming publicly revealed his government had tried to kill Castro as part of the invasion? I have little doubt CIA planned to kill Castro, and that this was the "something" which Dulles publicly admitted they had counted on to happen which didn't transpire. Whether Kennedy knew about it is another matter entirely.

JFK also did deals with the Texas oil industry, promising to leave their “oil depletion allowance” alone.

And it was left alone, despite discussions to the contrary having been conducted during his tenure.

JFK also sent RFK down to the Deep South to promise no legislation on civil rights.

And, to his eternal discredit, he would have been as good as his word had various previously unforseen events not forced his hand.

Maybe, his father even made promises on his behalf to the Mafia.

The problem about making promises is that if you break them you will be punished, either by the electorate or by the pressure groups you have let down.

One also has to look at the record of the JFK administration. JFK did go along with the Bay of Pigs invasion.

And thereafter complained bitterly that he'd been sold a pig in a poke, as subsequent forensic investigations demonstrably proved was true.

Nor did he make principled decisions about civil rights. As RFK explained, JFK sacked Harris Wofford, chairman of the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights (1960-1962), because he was too passionate about the subject of civil rights legislation.

Thank you, for this illustrates precisely what I stated above.

Most importantly, JFK and RFK put Martin Luther King under a lot of pressure to call of his civil rights demonstrations. The same tactic was used against the leaders of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) who were causing bad publicity for the Democratic Party in the Deep South with their Freedom Rides. Thank goodness they took no notice of JFK. The truth is that the main reason black civil rights were achieved was because of the actions of people like Martin Luther King, James Farmer and Bayard Rustin and not because of the views of so-called liberal white politicians.

Whatever private sympathies the Kennedys may have had for the civil rights movement, they only became public when King, et al, forced the Kennedys' hand. For me, this is the most damning condemnation of the Kennedy administration, a fact I trust will be borne in mind the next time somebody wishes to accuse me of trying to whitewash JFK's legacy.

As the people of Iraq are currently finding out, you have to fight to get freedom and democracy. It is not something that you can have imposed on you.

Which is precisely what the Kennedys discovered the hard way when troops were called out - as they had been in the Eisenhower administration - to preserve public order in the face of race-based insurrection.

bought the book and trying to plow thru it, but find it a dificult read-having a story to tell does not guarantee you'll do it well.

[Myra Bronstein]

I like David Talbot thought that Lamar Waldron has misinterpreted the evidence. I would even go as far to say that he might be a victim of a CIA disinformation campaign.

I would go so far as to say that the authors might be mockingbirds. Just speculation on my part, but they're certainly promoting the CIA party line with their mob dunnit scenario.

I do not think it is helpful to describe fellow researchers as "disinformation agents" because you disagree with their theories. I have met Lamar and liked him a lot. He has spent 17 years on the research and made many personal sacrifices to produce "Ultimate Sacrifice". As long-time members will no, I believe the "mob did it" theory was put out by the CIA in 1967. However, I have no reason to doubt that Lamar is completely genuine in his own theories of what happened.

I do not think it is helpful, John, to use quotation marks to attribute a phrase I never used to me. I used a phrase that means the same thing, but quotation marks mean something specific, and you misused them. They mean that you are repeating an exact passage in someones' own words. Those are not my words.

We can certainly discuss what I did say, but not as long as you're making up "quotes" and attributing them to me.

[John Simkin]

New York Post

Liz Smith

December 4, 2006

Saturday was a big day in Cuba for the ailing Fidel Castro and for his lieutenant Commander Juan Almeida, head of the army and famed hero of the revolution. It was the last day of Fidel's 80th birthday celebration.

Also the anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution. (Fidel was actually born Aug. 13, 1926.)

I believe it's a scoop to tell you that the Cubans are now frantically at work erecting a top-secret mausoleum for Castro at Pico Turquino, the highest peak in the Sierra Maestra mountains. This was Castro's favorite place as a boy growing up. With brother Raul now in charge, the question is whether Fidel will ever resume control of his government.

I wrote on Sept. 22 about Commander Almeida, who has been revealed as a CIA agent in direct contact with JFK/RFK people back in 1963. They were trying to overthrow Castro just before President Kennedy was assassinated. Castro evidently later forgave Almeida, and the general's story has recently been on Hispanic TV in Miami. Cubans in Florida are very interested in the commander, but the official press in Cuba keeps silent about Almeida's secret work for the United States. They either deny it or don't deal with it.

After my story appeared, Gen. Fabian Escalante, once head of Cuban state security, responded: "This information must be an active measure of the CIA. It's a dirty trick. There is no degree of certainty in this. I thought this book would have better arguments."

The book he refers to is by the writer Lamar Waldron.

It is titled "Ultimate Sacrifice" and gives us explosive new FBI information about the confession of Louisiana godfather Carlos Marcello, the man behind JFK's assassination.

Personally, I find Waldron's arguments excellent. It's the CIA, the FBI and the Cuban government that have dummied up. Neither Waldron nor I work for any government agency, as the Cuban general suggests. And it is journalist Waldron who brings all this to public attention after spending more than 18 years researching and writing his revealing story.

Waldron has hot info fresh from the National Archives.

It tells us that mob boss Marcello actually met with Lee Harvey Oswald and that he set up Jack Ruby in the Dallas nightclub business. Marcello ruled an empire from Louisiana to Dallas for decades. Congress determined back in 1979 that Marcello had the motive and means to have the president killed. Marcello is even quoted: "Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed.

I'm glad I did. I'm sorry I couldn't have done it myself." The FBI files reveal hundreds of hours of Marcello speaking from prison. They taped his cell.

These tapes haven't been released and have been unknown to historians and journalists - until now.

An informant who knew Marcello in prison told the FBI this: "Marcello seemed to be very upset about the Kennedys. This is all he would talk about. He told me and my friend about a meeting with Oswald. He had been introduced to Oswald by a man named 'Ferris' (probably David Ferrie, memorably played in the Oliver Stone "JFK" movie by actor Joe Pesci). Although Marcello denied to the FBI that he knew either Oswald or Ruby, he told his prison friend something quite different.

Marcello said that Ruby was homosexual "but good to have around to report to me." He said all the Dallas police "were on the take" and indicated he could get away with whatever he wanted in Dallas.

The FBI had much information on Marcello, but it was author John Davis, a Jackie Kennedy cousin, who mentioned Marcello's involvement in JFK's death. The FBI, however, seemed determined to keep Marcello's confessions suppressed. Bobby Kennedy certainly knew Marcello had killed his brother, but he could not act because that would have exposed the secret U.S. plan with Commander Almeida to overthrow Castro. By the spring of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was beginning to work with journalists on exposing Marcello. He was then assassinated.

Had he been elected president, Bobby Kennedy might have finally unleashed all the government resources at his command to prosecute Marcello. The Waldron trade paperback of "Ultimate Sacrifice" links both mob boss Marcello and hit man Johnny Rosselli to Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of killing RFK. But Bobby Kennedy died, and hundreds of hours of FBI tapes remain unreleased, as do more than a million CIA files on JFK's assassination. A 1991 act of Congress requires their release, but they haven't been.

The JFK-Almeida coup plan, called AMWorld, was first written about in this very column. But, hey, it's all so complicated, maybe nobody cares anymore who or why the Kennedys were killed and why the FBI dragged its feet and that the Castro government today protects a military man who had been the best friend of the revolutionary Che Guevara and was closely involved in all of it.

[John Simkin]

New York Post

Liz Smith

December 4, 2006

Saturday was a big day in Cuba for the ailing Fidel Castro and for his lieutenant Commander Juan Almeida, head of the army and famed hero of the revolution. It was the last day of Fidel's 80th birthday celebration.

Also the anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution. (Fidel was actually born Aug. 13, 1926.)

I believe it's a scoop to tell you that the Cubans are now frantically at work erecting a top-secret mausoleum for Castro at Pico Turquino, the highest peak in the Sierra Maestra mountains. This was Castro's favorite place as a boy growing up. With brother Raul now in charge, the question is whether Fidel will ever resume control of his government.

I wrote on Sept. 22 about Commander Almeida, who has been revealed as a CIA agent in direct contact with JFK/RFK people back in 1963. They were trying to overthrow Castro just before President Kennedy was assassinated. Castro evidently later forgave Almeida, and the general's story has recently been on Hispanic TV in Miami. Cubans in Florida are very interested in the commander, but the official press in Cuba keeps silent about Almeida's secret work for the United States. They either deny it or don't deal with it.

After my story appeared, Gen. Fabian Escalante, once head of Cuban state security, responded: "This information must be an active measure of the CIA. It's a dirty trick. There is no degree of certainty in this. I thought this book would have better arguments."

I think Fabian Escalante has got it right.

[William Kelly]

Peter Dale Scott, in his Dallas COPA talk, said that the second, paperback edition of Ultimate Sac is deserving of more closer study, besides just naming a few of the previously undisclosed individuals.

I thought I'd bring this discussion back to the table since I just got my new, improved and updated paperback version and wanted to see what the big deal is all about.

Has anyone else read both?

I feel like I got ripped off for the hardbound bucks.

BK

[J. Raymond Carroll]

The assumption that the Kennedys sought Castro's murder is based solely upon the oral recollections of CIA personnel, who had their own agenda in floating this canard.

This is of course true. That is the way “plausible deniability” works. If it is true of JFK, it is also true.......

According to CIA agents, and this includes those who are not linked to the assassination of JFK, Robert Kennedy played a dominant role in pushing the agency to “take out Castro”....

Some weeks ago our esteemed moderator, John Simkin, started a thread about a rumor in the research community to the effect that he, John Simkin, was "CIA". John handled the rumor right up front, and no serious person doubted his word.

I had not heard that rumor before and I wondered how such a rumor might get started.

In this thread John is trying to persuade us that JFK and RFK were CIA, all the way. Like countless millions of people all over the world, I like and respect the memory JFK and RFK, even though we never knew them in person. But we know them by their deeds, and their deeds were mighty.

In her famous Camelot interview with TH White, Jacqueline Kennedy warned us all that her husband's memory would be profaned by those she called "the bitter people." We should have expected that the bitter people would inevitably accuse JFK of being implicated in heinous crimes, and if we absorbed Jackie's warning well, we were not surprised when the bitter people threw Bobby into the mix as well -- of course they waited until RFK was dead and, like his brother, could not defend himself.

My point is not to defend those who spread false rumors about John, but to submit that if it is reasonable to believe that JFK and RFK were CIA, all the way, then it is at least as reasonable -- if not more so -- for someone who doesn't know him

to believe that John himself is CIA. Some of his posts show an alarming sympathy for the viewpoint of the bitter people. John is beginning to sound like Tim Gratz.

[Guest Gary Loughran]

Sorry, J. R. I don't understand how your view of JS was derived.

Are you sure you've read and understood what was said in your quoted section?

Gary

[John Simkin]

James DiEugenio, review of Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked (March, 2008)

http://www.ctka.net/someone_would.html

Since Hancock is dealing in the Cuban exile milieu, he spends a lot of time on the infamous characters of Dave Morales and John Roselli. And this is where I need to mention a couple of volumes the author uses, books which I find unreliable.

One of them is Ultimate Sacrifice, which I have reviewed at length previously. I won't go through the myriad problems I have with that book. But as a result of that, I was surprised that Hancock seemed to actually take it seriously. Even its most questionable thesis, about a so-called second invasion of Cuba assembled by the Pentagon and CIA (see p. 200). Unfortunately, Hancock leaves out the fact that Director of Plans Richard Helms didn't seem to know about that invasion. And neither did Pentagon Chief Bob McNamara or National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy.

[Larry Hancock]

James DiEugenio, review of Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked (March, 2008)

http://www.ctka.net/someone_would.html

Since Hancock is dealing in the Cuban exile milieu, he spends a lot of time on the infamous characters of Dave Morales and John Roselli. And this is where I need to mention a couple of volumes the author uses, books which I find unreliable.

One of them is Ultimate Sacrifice, which I have reviewed at length previously. I won't go through the myriad problems I have with that book. But as a result of that, I was surprised that Hancock seemed to actually take it seriously. Even its most questionable thesis, about a so-called second invasion of Cuba assembled by the Pentagon and CIA (see p. 200). Unfortunately, Hancock leaves out the fact that Director of Plans Richard Helms didn't seem to know about that invasion. And neither did Pentagon Chief Bob McNamara or National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy.

I disagree with certain conclusions in “Ultimate Sacrifice”, something that I’ve discussed personally with Lamar. However, I do find new information in it – including the private statements by Harry Ruiz Williams about a backchannel approach to Cuban army commander Almeida (an approach known only to Williams and the Kennedy brothers) credible and informative.. Clearly JFK and his brother were very much involved in looking for paths to trigger a coup against Castro – we have more than enough hard information to document that. And I see no reason to call Mr. Williams a xxxx, especially as the documented call for Williams from RFK on the afternoon of his- JFK’s- assassination suggests there was something very important going on between the Kennedy’s and Williams.

[Robert Howard]

James DiEugenio, review of Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked (March, 2008)

http://www.ctka.net/someone_would.html

Since Hancock is dealing in the Cuban exile milieu, he spends a lot of time on the infamous characters of Dave Morales and John Roselli. And this is where I need to mention a couple of volumes the author uses, books which I find unreliable.

One of them is Ultimate Sacrifice, which I have reviewed at length previously. I won't go through the myriad problems I have with that book. But as a result of that, I was surprised that Hancock seemed to actually take it seriously. Even its most questionable thesis, about a so-called second invasion of Cuba assembled by the Pentagon and CIA (see p. 200). Unfortunately, Hancock leaves out the fact that Director of Plans Richard Helms didn't seem to know about that invasion. And neither did Pentagon Chief Bob McNamara or National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy.

I disagree with certain conclusions in "Ultimate Sacrifice", something that I've discussed personally with Lamar. However, I do find new information in it – including the private statements by Harry Ruiz Williams about a backchannel approach to Cuban army commander Almeida (an approach known only to Williams and the Kennedy brothers) credible and informative.. Clearly JFK and his brother were very much involved in looking for paths to trigger a coup against Castro – we have more than enough hard information to document that. And I see no reason to call Mr. Williams a xxxx, especially as the documented call for Williams from RFK on the afternoon of his- JFK's- assassination suggests there was something very important going on between the Kennedy's and Williams.

I agree with Larry, as flawed as the conclusions of Ultimate Sacrifice might be [extreme in my humble opinion] they have some documentation that can not be ignored! I do not sense a disinfo-op here...just a failure to draw the right conclusions.

While the smoke has cleared re Ultimate Sacrifice, meaning the paperback edition has been out long enough for the readers of it to have a more crystalline look at the premises and conclusions of the authors, there are rather obvious points, that can be clarified. For one, at least one person mentioned on this thread, that the idea of John and Bobby authorizing a Castro assassination attempt, while, at the same time pursuing a potential normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, as not being credible, is less difficult, in my estimation, to accept. Due to the fact that it would fall under a description of a "two-track" approach. Simplified, as meaning "having all of ones options on the table," which is perfectly logical in the sense that there are always intangibles in matters like the one being described and "events having a life of their own."

See The Bay of Pigs, and/or The Cuban Missile Crisis.

Which is stating the obvious I suppose......

And I must add, that the reality of JFK's assassination taking place before C-Day, is a fatal premise as far as the book as a whole.

Having said that, to dismiss the book, would be even more ridiculous......

There is a incredible wealth of information revealed in this book, much of which can only be found in its pages.

Particularly, the chronology of Chicago, Tampa and Dallas and Richard Cain.......

To some degree, seldom explored areas Guantanamo......French connections......ZR/RIFLE........

One point that I particularly like about the book, is the dilligence which is exercised by the authors when looking into the possibility of "Oswald" being in Montreal.....and its subsequent allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions as to whether it was Lee Harvey Oswald or not, another book explores this angle of the Oswald impersonations, [as do many books]in a more haphazard manner, and, in my view detracts from what would otherwise be the perfect book on the JFK Assassination, not that perfection has been attained, regarding a magnum opus of JFK Assassination Books, a point, that is in itself very controversial, and could be debated ad infinitum......

One last point: One of the least constructed areas of research is coordinating ZR/RIFLE and QJ/WIN in context with events taking place in France, ie Desmond Fitzgerald and Rolando Cubela et cetera, although Ultimate Sacrifice, delivers in this area a good deal.

Those interested in placing all of the events of the assassination into one coherent and fluid flow of information, without excluding anything, would be wise to brush up on.....

The area concerning KGB infiltration of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the SDECE, (Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-espionage.) When one explores this particular avenue, a great deal of attention is naturally focused on one Phillippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, there is a lot of ambiguity regarding this individual in the written word of JFK Research, and while Edward J. Epstein has interviewed him, I myself, prefer as dispassionate an account as possible.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be such a item which could give a more balanced view of de Vosjoli, and that would be The French Secret Services - A History of French Intelligence from the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War, Douglas Porch; which mentions him on twenty-five pages......As the commercial say's, it is [hopefully] "time-well spent."

[William Kelly]

Has Lamar ever met Liz Smith?

BK

New York Post

Liz Smith

December 4, 2006

Saturday was a big day in Cuba for the ailing Fidel Castro and for his lieutenant Commander Juan Almeida, head of the army and famed hero of the revolution. It was the last day of Fidel's 80th birthday celebration.

Also the anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution. (Fidel was actually born Aug. 13, 1926.)

I believe it's a scoop to tell you that the Cubans are now frantically at work erecting a top-secret mausoleum for Castro at Pico Turquino, the highest peak in the Sierra Maestra mountains. This was Castro's favorite place as a boy growing up. With brother Raul now in charge, the question is whether Fidel will ever resume control of his government.

I wrote on Sept. 22 about Commander Almeida, who has been revealed as a CIA agent in direct contact with JFK/RFK people back in 1963. They were trying to overthrow Castro just before President Kennedy was assassinated. Castro evidently later forgave Almeida, and the general's story has recently been on Hispanic TV in Miami. Cubans in Florida are very interested in the commander, but the official press in Cuba keeps silent about Almeida's secret work for the United States. They either deny it or don't deal with it.

After my story appeared, Gen. Fabian Escalante, once head of Cuban state security, responded: "This information must be an active measure of the CIA. It's a dirty trick. There is no degree of certainty in this. I thought this book would have better arguments."

The book he refers to is by the writer Lamar Waldron.

It is titled "Ultimate Sacrifice" and gives us explosive new FBI information about the confession of Louisiana godfather Carlos Marcello, the man behind JFK's assassination.

Personally, I find Waldron's arguments excellent. It's the CIA, the FBI and the Cuban government that have dummied up. Neither Waldron nor I work for any government agency, as the Cuban general suggests. And it is journalist Waldron who brings all this to public attention after spending more than 18 years researching and writing his revealing story.

Waldron has hot info fresh from the National Archives.

It tells us that mob boss Marcello actually met with Lee Harvey Oswald and that he set up Jack Ruby in the Dallas nightclub business. Marcello ruled an empire from Louisiana to Dallas for decades. Congress determined back in 1979 that Marcello had the motive and means to have the president killed. Marcello is even quoted: "Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed.

I'm glad I did. I'm sorry I couldn't have done it myself." The FBI files reveal hundreds of hours of Marcello speaking from prison. They taped his cell.

These tapes haven't been released and have been unknown to historians and journalists - until now.

An informant who knew Marcello in prison told the FBI this: "Marcello seemed to be very upset about the Kennedys. This is all he would talk about. He told me and my friend about a meeting with Oswald. He had been introduced to Oswald by a man named 'Ferris' (probably David Ferrie, memorably played in the Oliver Stone "JFK" movie by actor Joe Pesci). Although Marcello denied to the FBI that he knew either Oswald or Ruby, he told his prison friend something quite different.

Marcello said that Ruby was homosexual "but good to have around to report to me." He said all the Dallas police "were on the take" and indicated he could get away with whatever he wanted in Dallas.

The FBI had much information on Marcello, but it was author John Davis, a Jackie Kennedy cousin, who mentioned Marcello's involvement in JFK's death. The FBI, however, seemed determined to keep Marcello's confessions suppressed. Bobby Kennedy certainly knew Marcello had killed his brother, but he could not act because that would have exposed the secret U.S. plan with Commander Almeida to overthrow Castro. By the spring of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was beginning to work with journalists on exposing Marcello. He was then assassinated.

Had he been elected president, Bobby Kennedy might have finally unleashed all the government resources at his command to prosecute Marcello. The Waldron trade paperback of "Ultimate Sacrifice" links both mob boss Marcello and hit man Johnny Rosselli to Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of killing RFK. But Bobby Kennedy died, and hundreds of hours of FBI tapes remain unreleased, as do more than a million CIA files on JFK's assassination. A 1991 act of Congress requires their release, but they haven't been.

The JFK-Almeida coup plan, called AMWorld, was first written about in this very column. But, hey, it's all so complicated, maybe nobody cares anymore who or why the Kennedys were killed and why the FBI dragged its feet and that the Castro government today protects a military man who had been the best friend of the revolutionary Che Guevara and was closely involved in all of it.

[William Kelly]

Legacy of Secrecy, (p. 24, chapter 2)

"Among the Joint Chiefs, evidence indicates that only Maxwell Taylor and DIA Chief Joseph Carroll were fully informed about Almeida. Others, like Air Force Chief General Curtis LeMay, were too hawkish and close to JFK's conservative adversaries in Congress to be trusted to know everything, especially about a plan that might be canceled if there was a breakthrough with the secret peace feelers to Castro. As JFK biographer ichard Reeves discovered, JFK was worried about the possibility of a military coup by a US general if he was perceived to have suffered another disaster like the Bay of Pigs. 9.

9. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy, Profile in Power (New York; Simon & Schuster, 1993, pp 305, 306).

I wonder how Lamar squares this with the facts we now know from the JCS Higgins memo of the Sept. 24, 1963 DesMond FitzGerald brieifing, which clearly establishes that while Taylor was off to Vietnam, LeMay was the chairman of the JCS, ran the meetings with an iron fist, tried to take over the anti-Castro Cuban maritime operations from the CIA, and directed Gen. Krulak to give the CIA maritime raiders all the military support they needed?

Indeed, as Reeves makes note and Lamar mentions, JFK wasn't afraid of Castro killing him, or the Mafia hijacking the Contingency Plans for a Coup in Cuba, he was afraid the military would pull off a coup against him and sensed it happening.

Then why not consider it was the JCS and not the Mafia who redirected the Contingency plans for Cuba and redirect them against JFK at Dealey Plaza?

Why only consider Castro, the Mafia and the CIA? Why not the JCS too?

BK

[Guest Tom Scully]

It seems to be Tim's suggestion that there was to be a failed assassination attempt to be blamed on Castro to justify a US invasion of Cuba ("C Day".) If the proposed invasion was known and approved by the Kennedys, as "Ultimate Sacrifice" posits, then arguably the Kennedys even knew about the fake assassination attempt.... And what a perfect opportunity for the Mafia to "hijack" the fake attempt and make it real. The CIA had already created and had in place a man the assassins could turn in to "the perfect patsy".If the above is close to what happened, it would certainly explain RFK's desperate attempt to "cover up". A most interesting scenario.

"I now believe you are right to suggest to me that the person who was supposed to be sitting in that seat was Ralph Yarborough, LBJ’s liberal political enemy, which explains not only why they were shooting at him but also why LBJ put up such a huge fuss over who should ride with JFK. When Jack insisted that the Chief Executive of the state should ride with the Chief Executive of the United States that morning, it must have been too late to change the arrangements that were in place." http://www.paranormalnews.com/article.asp?articleId=569

A fake assassination plot being hijacked to become a real one brings up the issue of who was the intended passenger with the president. There is no debate that people were arguing about it right up until Air Force One landed in Dallas. Many have suspected that LBJ was strongly motivated to have the passenger be Yarborough because he had foreknowledge and wouldn't want his protege, Connally, in the line of fire. But considering foreknowledge that the passenger is to be a target and lending consideration to the possibility that the fake attempt was an Operation Northwoods plot to create a precipating action for the Cuban invasion, it would have been the Kennedy forces most adamently arranging for it to be Connally. In this scenario, Oswald, who personally loathed Connally, would be assigned to shoot the Governor, with the appearance being a Castro attempt against Kennedy. This has its historical percusor in the murder of Chicago Mayor Cermak while in the presence of FDR in 1933.

T.C.

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

Elliot Ness considered Kennard Smith to be the "Last of his Untouchables" -- because Smith had worked with Ness as an investigator, almost up to his death during 1957.

The actual "Last of The Untouchables" died many years later, and had lived out his last years in Perrine, Florida -- just south of Miami.

Smith also had a loose acquaintanceship with Melvin Purvis, but this was when Smith was quite young. When I asked Ken about the "inside scoop" on the shooting of Mayor Cermak, he related to me that: Both Ness and Purvis believed that "Queen" Hoover had tried to do a complete cover-up -- but had failed.

The first salient "facts" that came out immediately upon a cursory investigation were:

(1) The bullet recovered from Cermak's chest was a .45 ACP calibre round, not a .32 cal., and moreover, no attempt was made to trace the recovered slug back to Zangara's .32 cal. revolver;

(2) The doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital had very good reason to go along with the cover-up. This was simply because it was their malpractice [in the E. R. and post-Op] which caused an otherwise non-fatal wound to became infected. This being coupled with a failure to close one artery completely, ultimately led to internal bleeding -- and this was the actual cause of his death;

(3) The "Hoover-fabricated-legend" about Zangara faded greatly a few months later. This occurred when a high ranking official of the Italian Caribinieri passed some military documents to the Rome based representative of the National Cash Register Company;

(4) But, since Zangara had already been electrocuted ["after a speedy trial"), said documents were just filed away. These documents were Zangara's military records, and they showed that he had been a member of the Italian Army Olympic Pistol Team -- and was one of their top shooters;

(5) The documents further disclosed that: Zangara had illegally supplied the Mafia with both police and military dossiers and "anti-Mafia plans". The last segment of an investigative file indicated that Zangara had been forced to cooperate with the Mafia only after both his mother and sister had first been threatened, and shortly thereafter -- kidnapped and held hostage;

(6) The high ranking Italian officer would add verbally only [to the NCR Rep.] that: Zangara had been encouraged to cooperate with the criminal element, and especially when Zangara informed this superior officer that he was scheduled to go to America to "work" for the Mafia; and,

(7) The top ranking superiors of this officer were thrilled that they would be able to once again form a relationship with the American law enforcement authorities, and this had been a firm "Compact" due to the fact that Italy had been a WWI Ally. However, and beginning even before the Volstead act took effect, the U.S. Government was quite angry at the widespread corruption linked to the bootlegging the drug trafficking. Blatant corruption of American police departments and politicians had soured completely all of the prior formal agreements !!

One wonders whether Jack Ruby was in the process of protecting members of his own family when he executed LHO ??!!

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

From Where Were You Before The Tree of Life? Vol 5

by Peter Farley

. . .How limited the human mind is in being able to grasp the concept of a conspiracy so big as to have lasted tens of thousands of years. The following excerpts from Contract on America The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy by David Scheim, even show how long (and how obvious) has been the relationship between these ruling families, the political and judicial arms of the United States, and one of its enforcing agencies—organized crime:

The Assassination of RFK:

"The key to unraveling this mystery may lie in thousands of documents collected during the investigation that for nearly twenty years were locked away in Los Angeles Police files. All that was released was a widely expurgated summary that is of no value to scholars. Finally, in December 1986, after calls to open these files from two Los

Angeles newspapers and several concerned citizens, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley fulfilled a promise to press for such disclosure, and the City Council passed a resolution to effect it. Although these RFK files have been turned over to the California State Archives, nothing has been released as of this writing. It is imperative that this evidence be expeditiously and fully disclosed.

"If in fact hints of underworld involvement in the RFK killing are true, we have come full circle in the Mafia's contract on America. For recall that on February 15, 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was shot together with several bystanders as Guiseppe Zangara stepped forward and fired his revolver. Cermak, who dies after accusing the mob of the shooting, had, like Robert Kennedy, aroused its wrath by intensive official action against it. And Zangara, the conjectured victim of a Mafia squeeze play, was, like Sirhan, a drifter who spent much of his time betting at race tracks.

"But most chillingly reminiscent of the Cermak slaying was the role of suspected second gunman Gene Cesar. For, according to noted sociologist Saul Alinsky, the way Cermak was killed had "been commonly known for many years in many circles in Chicago." As quoted earlier from The Bootleggers by Kennedy Allsop, "In the crowd near Zangara was another armed man—a Capone killer. In the flurry of shots six people were hit—but the bullet that struck Cermak was a .45, and not from the .32-calibre pistol used by Zangara, and was fired by the unknown Capone man who took advantage of the confusion to accomplish his mission."

(^Like JFK and RFK's killers, there has always been at least one other professional to do the job while the front man takes the blame)..."

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

Warren Commission Report: Page 512

(APPENDIX VII - A Brief History of Presidential Protection)

As the scope of the Presidency expanded during the 20th century, the Secret Service found the problems of protection becoming more numerous. In 1906, for the first time in history, a President traveled outside the United States while in office. When Theodore Roosevelt visited Panama in that year, he was accompanied and protected by Secret Service men.41 In 1918-19 Woodrow Wilson broadened the precedent of Presidential foreign travel when he traveled to Europe with a Secret Service escort of 10 men to attend the Versailles Peace Conference.42

The attempt on the life of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 further demonstrated the broad scope and complexity of the protection problems facing the Secret Service. Giuseppe Zangara was a bricklayer and stonemason with a professed hatred of capitalists and Presidents. He seemed to be obsessed with the desire to kill a President. After his arrest he confessed that he had first planned to go to Washington to kill President Herbert Hoover, but as the cold climate of the North was bad for his stomach trouble, he was loath to leave Miami, where he was staying. When he read in the paper that President-elect Roosevelt would be in Miami, he resolved to kill him.43

On the night of February 15, 1933, at, a political rally in Miami's Bayfront Park, the President-elect sat on the top of the rear seat of his automobile with a small microphone in his hand as he made a short informal talk. Fortunately for him, however, he slid down into the seat just before Zangara could get near enough to take aim. The assassin's arm may have been jogged just as he shot; the five rounds he directed at Roosevelt went awry. However, he mortally wounded Mayor Anton Cermak, of Chicago, and hit four other persons; the President-elect, by a miracle, escaped. Zangara, of course, never had any chance of escaping.44

Zangara was electrocuted on March 20, 1933, only 33 days after his attempt on Roosevelt. No evidence of accomplices or conspiracy came to light, but there was some sensational newspaper speculation, wholly undocumented, that Zangara may have been hired by Chicago gangsters to kill Cermak.45

The force provided since the Civil War by the Washington Metropolitan Police for the protection of the White House had grown to 54 men by 1922.46 In that year Congress enacted legislation creating the White House Police Force as a separate organization under the direct control of the President.47 This force was actually supervised by the President's military aide until 1930, when Congress placed supervision under the Chief of the Secret Service.48 Although Congress transferred control and supervision of the force to the Secretary of the Treasury in 1962,49 the Secretary delegated supervision to the Chief of the Secret Service.50

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

Anton Cermak

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Anton Cermak, in Czech Antonín Čermák, (May 9, 1873 - March 6, 1933) was the mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1931 until his death in 1933.

Born in Kladno, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), Cermak emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1874. He began his political career as a precinct captain and in 1902 was elected to the Illinois state legislature. Seven years later, he would take his place as alderman of the 12th Ward (Bridgeport, the home base of future mayors Richard J. Daley, Mike Bilandic and Daley's son Richard M. Daley). Once elected mayor of Chicago in 1931, in the wake of the Great Depression and the deep resentment many Chicagoans had of Prohibition, Cermak treated the city as if it were a personal business and tried to provide the best service possible. He was so popular that anyone who went up against him was achieving their own political death. While riding in an open car next to President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami Beach, Florida on February 15, 1933, Cermak was shot and fatally wounded when Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate Roosevelt and hit Cermak instead. Some have theorized Cermak, not Roosevelt, had been the intended target as he was intent on driving the Mafia (at least its Capone faction) out of Chicago. Cermak died of his wounds on March 6 and was interred at Bohemian National Cemetery, Chicago.

Cermak is considered the father of Chicago's powerful Democratic political machine. Before Cermak, new immigrants in the early 1900s such as Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Italians, and blacks were apolitical. Cermak, with help from FDR on the national level, also gradually wooed blacks into the Democratic fold. The taunt of William Hale Thompson in the 1931 mayor's race, representative of the WASPs who had led Chicago for years, only backfired on him.

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

Cermak's son-in-law, Otto Kerner Jr., was Illinois governor from 1961 to 1968 and later headed the Kerner Commission, which issued a report on race relations in the United States. Kerner was appointed a judge of the United States Court of Appeals, a post he had to resign in 1973 after being convicted for his role in an illegal racetrack financing scheme while serving as governor.

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

GPH

________________________________________________

I was going to post the following in Robert Howard's new thread, but the late Gerry Hemming years ago posted the perfect prequel to what I am posting now.:

http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_197.html

March 2002

The Guns Of Zangara

Part One

By John William Tuohy

..Who was Zangara, and who was his intended victim Anton Cermak, and did the Chicago mob order the killing?

The recent discovery of lost government records can now answer those questions and forever seal the case of the Guns of Zangara. ...

...For a while, it was going well for the upstarts. Almost too well. The Touhys gunned down the syndicate's lead labor plunderer, Red Barker, the government jailed the equally deadly Murray Humpreys, and Cermak's boys shot down Frank Nitti.

They were so close. They had chased the syndicate out of the Teamsters and had ready access to the pension funds. They owned city hall and the cops.

Then the tide started to turn.

First, Teddy Newberry's dead body showed up on the bitter cold evening of January 7, 1933. He was found lying face down in a ditch in Porter county, Indiana.

After Newberry was killed, Tony Cermak lost his nerve. Tony was absolutely certain that the outfit had pegged Louis "Short Pants" Campagna; Al Capone's former bodyguard was going to kill him.

He may have been right. According to newsman Jack Lait, in late 1933, the syndicate's hit men tried to blow up Cermak's car early one morning in the middle of Chicago's loop.

After that, Cermak beefed up his security forces and moved from the Congress hotel to the Morrison hotel where he paid for a private elevator that went non-stop to his penthouse suite. He increased his city police guard from two to five officers and had detectives sent to protect his daughters and hired on private bodyguards to augment his city police detail and then took a midnight train to Miami where he owned a home.

The job to end the union war with the Touhys and take out Anton Cermak fell to Paul Ricca, acting boss since Nitti had been shot. Ricca determined that the only way to deal with Cermak was to kill him. But, knocking off the mayor of the nation's second largest city would bring down more heat on the mob then Cermak ever could have gathered. Unless, of course, the murder could be thumbed off on a "nut case."

The "Nutcase" they found was Giuseppe Zangara, a hapless Italian immigrant with a gambling problem, who was into the outfit for his eye teeth.

To be continued ....

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-05-2...nedy-robert-f/3

RFK's assassination: The beat goes on

THE ARGUMENT

May 28, 1995|By Ralph Schoenman | Ralph Schoenman,Special to The Sun

(Page 3 of 3)

...."Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of John F. Kennedy," by David E. Scheim (Shapolsky Books, 1988) documents Ace Security Service's links with U.S. National Bank of San Diego, a laundering vehicle for organized crime. Cesar was arrested in Tijuana, Mexico, after performing jobs for John "the Candyman" Alessio, a director of the conglomerate controlling U.S. National Bank....

http://www.crimemagazine.com/06/mobpresidentnixon,0205-6.htm

The Mob's President:

Richard Nixon's Secret Ties to the Mafia

by Don Fulsom

...There's evidence Nixon later made an effort to cash in on the ''good deeds'' he had performed for his Mafia friends. Records reveal that FBI agents suspected the Nixon White House of soliciting $1 million from the Teamsters to pay hush money to the Watergate burglars.

In fact, in early 1973 – when the Watergate cover-up was coming apart at the seams – aide John Dean told the president that $1 million might be needed to keep the burglary team silent. Nixon responded, ''We could get that … you could get a million dollars. You could get it in cash, I know where it could be gotten.''

When Dean observed that money laundering ''is the type of thing Mafia people can do,'' Nixon calmly answered: ''Maybe it takes a gang to do that.''

It is suspected that most of the Watergate ''hush money'' distributed to E. Howard Hunt – who, during Watergate, was Nixon's secret chief spy – and other members of the burglary team came from Rebozo and other shadowy Nixon pals like Tony Provenzano, Jimmy Hoffa, Howard Hughes, Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante, Meyer Lansky, and Lansky buddy John Alessio.

An ex-con, Alessio, the gambling king of San Diego, was one of the few guests at Nixon's New York hotel suite on election night, 1968. Alessio was rubbing elbows with Nixon and his family at a very special occasion – despite a mid-'60s conviction for skimming millions of dollars from San Diego's racetrack revenues.

On June 20, 1972 an anxious Richard Nixon picked up the Oval Office phone and called Anthony Provenzano's top henchman, Joseph Trerotola, a key Teamsters union power broker in his own right. Perhaps the President had some laundered cash in mind to help keep the Watergate burglars quiet about their White House ties. We will never know for sure why Tony Pro's right-hand man was one of the first people Nixon called after the burglary. Scholars who try to listen to that recently released one-minute-long conversation at the National Archives will find that the tape has been totally erased. The Archives believes the tape was probably erased by mistake by Secret Service overseers of Nixon's taping system. But an Archives spokesman acknowledges that Nixon – or someone else – might possibly have tampered with the Nixon-Trerotola tape.

A short time before phoning the mobster, Nixon had an Oval Office conversation about Watergate with his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman. This is the famous tape that contains an 18 and one-half minute erasure. The president's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, publicly took the fall for the ''gap'' in the Nixon-Haldeman tape, saying she might have accidentally made the erasure. Many historians suspect the president was the Eraser-in-Chief. Back then, the strangest explanation of all came from Nixon aide Alexander Haig, who publicly blamed a ''sinister force.'' Behind closed doors, however, Haig told Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski that the tape in question had been ''screwed with.'' At first, Nixon went along with ''the secretary did it'' story. But he later blamed one of his Watergate lawyers, Fred Buzhardt – after Buzhardt's death.

After Nixon left office in August 1974 to avoid being impeached by Congress for the illegal activities he supervised and concealed during the Watergate scandal, he spent more than a year brooding in self-exile at his walled estate in San Clemente, Calif. The very first post-resignation invitation the disgraced ex-president accepted was from his Teamsters buddies. On Oct. 9, 1975, he played golf at La Costa, a Mob-owned California resort with Teamsters chief Frank Fitzsimmons and other top union officials. Among those who attended a post-golf game party for Nixon were Provenzano, Dorfman, and the union's executive secretary, Murray (''Dusty'') Miller.

Tony Pro would later die in prison, a convicted killer. A key Mob-Teamster financial coordinator, Dorfman was later murdered gangland-style. Murray ''Dusty'' Miller was the man, records show, gangster Jack Ruby had telephoned several days before Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in November 1963.

In July 1975, Jimmy Hoffa vanished in a Detroit suburb, and his body has never been found. Some federal investigators believe he was shot to death after being lured to a reconciliation meeting with Provenzano, who never showed up. On at least two occasions, Tony Pro had threatened to kill Hoffa and kidnap his children....

....Newly released FBI documents show that, in 1978, federal investigators sought to force former President Nixon and Teamster boss Fitzsimmons to testify about events surrounding Hoffa's disappearance. The investigators concluded that such testimony offered the last, best chance of solving the Hoffa mystery. But they accused top Justice Department officials of derailing their efforts to call the two men before a Detroit grand jury.

The records also reveal that FBI agents suspected the Nixon White House of soliciting $1 million from the Teamsters to keep the Watergate burglars silent.

The disclosures are detailed in more than 2,000 pages of previously secret FBI documents — obtained by the Detroit Free Press through a Freedom of Information lawsuit. They show that Fitzsimmons had actually been a government informant on an unspecified matter from 1972 to 1974. Could Fitzsimmons's cooperation in that case have persuaded the Justice Department to turn thumbs down on the grand jury idea?

The records don't say. But they do show that the Detroit FBI office sent a number of memos to Washington stressing that Nixon and Fitzsimmons could hold the answers to the Hoffa case.

Robert Stewart, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Buffalo, N.Y., who helped lead the investigation into just how Hoffa vanished, said in another memo: ''The one individual who could prove the matter beyond a doubt is Richard Nixon.'' Stewart wasn't sure whether Nixon would cooperate, given that he had been pardoned by successor Gerald Ford for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. But the investigator added that Nixon ''must certainly appreciate that while the pardon may protect him as to whatever happened in the White House, a fresh perjury committed in a current grand jury would place him in dire jeopardy.''

In a separate memo to headquarters, Detroit FBI agents concluded, ''It would be a gross understatement to state that Fitzsimmons is the key to the solution of this case, and yet he represents the major problem encountered with the Department of Justice … Fitzsimmons should have appeared long ago before the federal grand jury in Detroit to answer questions about his association with Hoffa and any possible involvement he had in dealings leading up to Hoffa's disappearance. To date, the Department of Justice has refused to allow Fitzsimmons to testify.''

Fitzsimmons died three years later, never appearing before the grand jury. Of course, Nixon, who died in 1994, never appeared either.

Nixon first met Fitzsimmons when Jimmy Hoffa was still in jail and Fitzsimmons was in line to succeed him as Teamsters boss. The President and Fitz quickly colluded on a plan for Hoffa's release, and they started an alliance that was sealed with cold cash – huge payments involving the Mob. How much –in addition to the previously mentioned $300,000 in the black valise that Hoffa's son and Allen Dorfman allegedly delivered from Hoffa – is not known, but there are indications it was considerably more.

In 1997, a former Fitzsimmons crony named Harry Hall told historian Anthony Summers: ''Fitzsimmons figured he'd found an ally in Nixon. The Teamsters would help him financially, and Nixon ate that up … I was told they gave money to Chotiner that was to go to Nixon. I think it was close to $500,000.''

Hall added that the half-million was intended for Nixon's personal use; and that a similar amount was donated to the president's re-election campaign.

In return, a delighted Nixon privately praised the union's members to Fitzsimmons as ''stand-up guys.'' And the President did a big personal favor for the Teamsters chief – he had the Justice Department stop a probe of Fitz's son, Richard, who was accused of allowing his wife and children to use a union credit card to buy $1,500 worth of gas for their cars. One federal investigator said the case against Richard Fitzsimmons was dropped because of the ''love affair'' between Nixon and Fitz.

In a smaller favor, but one that meant a great deal to the golf-addicted Fitzsimmons, Nixon ordered aide Charles Colson to try to get Fitz into a prestigious Washington country club. Colson wrote a memo to his assistant, George Bell: ''Fitz wants Columbia because that's where (AFL-CIO union president George) Meany belongs. But if (Fitz) got into Burning Tree (where the President golfed) he could be one up on Meany, which would appeal to him – any way you have to, but do it somehow, whatever needs to be done. I suspect the President would write a letter (on Fitz's behalf) if needed.''

Colson wore horn-rimmed glasses and was a tall, heavyset, tough-talking ex-Marine who was ruthless with Nixon's enemies (he had a motto above his bar: ''Once you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow''). Yet Colson showed an amiable, even pliable side, when doling out favors to the President's mobbed-up labor allies.

A Jan. 19, 1972 Justice Department memo predicted that a Fitzsimmons Teamsters associate – a New York hoodlum named Daniel Gagliardi – would be indicted for extortion ''sometime next month.'' But Gagliardi knew whom to phone for help in the Nixon White House: Chuck Colson. He actually spoke with Colson's aide George Bell, who later told his boss in a memo: ''I talked to Gagliardi, who maintained complete ignorance and innocence regarding the Teamsters. (He) asked that he be gotten off the hook.''

Colson wrote back to Bell: ''Watch for this. Do all possible.''

Bell obviously carried out his assignment: Gagliardi was never indicted.

Nixon's and Colson's courting of Fitzsimmons paid off big-time at a July 17, 1972 meeting of Teamster leaders at the Mob-owned La Costa Country Club near San Diego. The union's 17-member executive board enthusiastically endorsed Nixon for re-election. Afterwards, the entire board traveled 35 miles up the California coast to the Western White House in San Clemente. There they delivered the good news to President Nixon and posed for individual pictures with him.

In October, Fitzsimmons issued a statement saying, ''The biggest weapon the American worker has to protect himself and his country is the ballot. This year we are going to use it to reject the extremism of (Democratic nominee Senator) George McGovern, and to re-elect a great American – President Richard Nixon.''

In November, Nixon scored a landslide victory over McGovern (who won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia) and prepared to give the nation ''four more years'' of his rather peculiar brand of ''law and order.''