Frankly, I hadn’t intended to write on this subject – at least right now. But a throwaway comment by Chris Matthews on “Hardball,” a recent reference in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” and a Tampa Tribune “Friday Extra” cover story prompted a revamped priority.
It has to do with the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. It has to do with what some members of the media obviously consider conventional wisdom, which may be much more conventional than wise.
Matthews was pointing out the eminently worrisome pattern of pervertedly partisan, Second Amendment zealots showing up at presidential appearances with loaded guns. He noted soberly that this country has a tragic record of presidents being assassinated – usually over politics gone horrifically crazy – and these instances of gun-toters milling around Obama events was frightening stuff. He said (the Jodie Foster-enamored) John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan, was an exception. Then he mentioned off-handedly that Lee Harvey Oswald, the one who “shot John F. Kennedy,” was some kind of “Communist” weirdo who was “pro-Castro.” Whatever. And then it was back to the Second Amendment interruption-fest with the usual, recycled guests.
Trudeau was satirizing the American electorate’s gullibility and their consequent need for conspiracy theories to validate their alternative realities. A valid target. Think: “Birthers.” But one panel had a character referencing “legacy fringe groups like the JFK grassy knollers, the staged moon landingists, etc.” Standard satire. Careless context.
The Trib’s “Friday Extra” piece chronicled conspiracy theories as mainstream entertainment. The pickings are hardly slim – and thank you very much, Oliver Stone. The Trib story drolly intermixed references to, among others, aliens, Big Foot, faked mooned landings, The Da Vinci Code and the lone-assassin theory behind JFK’s assassination.
Enough. While we know that journalists write the first draft of history, many keep referencing old notes on the tragic, seminal American event of the Cold War. And it remains a satirist’s free pass. And, candidly, two generations later, it’s more a matter of indifference than interest for most Americans, especially those with seared Zapruder images grotesquely graven for a lifetime.
Conspiracy and Cover Up
There was a time – well before the House Select Committee on Assassinations issued its final report in 1979 – where it was pretty much gospel for most Americans to agree that Oswald was a lone assassin.
As for those who publicly and blatantly disagreed – well, there will always be those who will revel in conspiracy theories. They do so largely because — they can. And it’s a familiar form of self promotion and delusion. Any wonder the word “nut” is frequently affixed to conspiracy? Not exactly a coinage oozing with connotations of credibility.
And for those who heretically persisted in Warren Commission bashing – from Rush To Judgment’s Mark Lane to Edward Epstein’s Inquest to Ramparts magazine – there was the media character-assassination campaign carried out by the CIA and FBI.
The early post-assassination years were characterized by insider misinformation — aimed at fingering Oswald and implicating Fidel Castro — and overlapping agendas.
Prime examples of the former were Richard Cain (Ricardo Scalzetti), David Atlee Phillips, David Morales, John Martino – and eventually even Johnny Rosselli.
Cain was a top official in the Cook County/Chicago sheriff’s office and a “made” member of the Mafia. Phillips, officially the Chief of Cuban Operations at the CIA’s Mexico City station, was also the CIA’s top propaganda expert. Morales, who became tight with Mafioso Rosselli, was the Miami CIA Operations Chief. Martino, the outspoken author of “I Was Castro’s Prisoner,” was a small-media-market operative – as well as a casino electronics expert and wireman for Tampa mobster Santo Trafficante.
Later in the decade, Rosselli made sure an evolving Castro-did-it cover story — actually a Castro “counterplot” that resulted in an ironic, tragic boomerang that killed JFK and tainted plot maestro Robert Kennedy — was aired by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.
As for those governmental machinations, there were classic cover-your-ass moves — institutional as well as career-serving — by the CIA and FBI. The CIA was necessarily sensitive about having been in bed with the Mafia — since 1959 — over multiple plots to assassinate Fidel Castro.
The FBI, under J. Edgar “There is no such thing as the Mafia” Hoover, was worried about a range of intelligence failures that had to be concealed – from organized-crime threats against JFK to Jack Ruby’s Mafia ties. There was also the indefensible nexus between Oswald and the former Chicago FBI Chief Guy Banister and his associate David Ferrie. Both Banister and Ferrie had incriminating Carlos Marcello connections. Mafioso Marcello’s domain was New Orleans, but his influence included Dallas.
Plus, the FBI had done a poor surveillance job on Oswald, a former Marine with ties to Naval Intelligence – and a one-time, putative Soviet “defector.” (Or “redefector” in CIA Cold War parlance.)
And, yes, the cooperation and coordination between the CIA and FBI, which were engaged in an ongoing bureaucratic struggle for power and funding, was less than exemplary.
In addition, a less-skeptical, pre-Watergate media was overwhelmingly accepting of the Warren Commission Report, rushed to print in September 1964. Many journalists were enamored of the commission’s prestigious members. A number — not just the New York Times’ Tad Szulc — were part of the CIA’s covert relationships with mainstream media outlets. And most literally didn’t have enough insight to counter the misinformation manipulation by the CIA – most notably Richard Helms and E. Howard Hunt.
Even the liberal media were largely deterred – so as not to, in effect, aid the efforts of John Birchers and other far-right elements who wanted Chief Justice Earl Warren impeached over the Supreme Court’s civil rights’ positions.
But the foremost cover-up agenda was national security – essentially the prevention of a “Missiles of October” sequel and the onset of World War III. That meant any conspiracy trail that would likely prompt an immediate, knee-jerk right-wing call for invading Cuba – with all the dire implications involving the Soviet Union – had to be summarily quashed. Communism and Castro could be scapegoated and used as Oswaldian motivation – but the island nation’s role as a nuclear trip-wire couldn’t be revisited. A necessarily delicate and deadly balance.
(Ironically, we now know that Oswald, who was never known to even badmouth JFK, was a player in Cuba-centric intrigues. But he was part of an extremely sensitive, ANTI-Castro operation that the CIA’s Richard Helms was running. Oswald’s well-publicized pamphlet-dispensing on behalf of the Fair Play For Cuba organization in New Orleans was a cover. He was the ONLY member of the New Orleans’ FPFC “affiliate.”)
Cuban subplots most prominently included the Dec.1, 1963 plan for an “internal” coup utilizing the iconic Commander of the Army Juan Almeida. It would utilize, among other means, American intelligence assets infiltrating Cuba. The ostensibly “pro-Soviet” Oswald, who had even visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, was a viable candidate.
That coup plan called for a (dead) pro-Soviet “patsy” Castro killer – so the Cuban people would more easily accept America-backed Almeida. It would also help keep Soviet troops in their barracks.
Dodd’s Grassy Knoll Take
But back to the HSCA investigation. The HSCA did single out Marcello and Trafficante as “likely” being behind the JFK assassination. It also officially underscored that both Marcello and Trafficante had the “motive, means and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy.” Alas, the HSCA was hamstrung from being more definitive by the wealth of material withheld by the CIA, FBI and other governmental agencies.
Undeterred, committee member Christopher Dodd — then a congressman, now a senator and recently a presidential candidate — put this on the record: “I remain convinced that the preponderance of the evidence supports the finding of the committee that a gunman fired from the grassy knoll.” Dodd’s been called a lot of things in the partisan mosh pit that is Washington politics, but “conspiracy nut” is not among them.
Dodd is hardly alone in thinking that Oswald, whatever his role, was not a lone gunman.
Recall all those witnesses and police heading immediately toward the grassy knoll after the Dallas shooting – some of whom encountered faux Secret Service agents with bogus credentials. And that two of JFK’s closest aides, Kenny O’Donnell and David Powers, who were riding in the limousine directly behind JFK’s, said they clearly saw gunfire from the front.
They were strongly urged to change their account and take one for the team – national security. Among those who agreed with O’Donnell’s and Powers’ observations: Robert Kennedy.
Also recall the cheap, unreliable Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with the poorly-affixed scope that was the “murder weapon.” And that less than 90 seconds after the “Crime of the Century” assassination, the emotionally impassive Oswald was questioned next to a Coke machine on the Texas Book Depository’s second floor and dismissed by the (only) policeman to check out the Book Depository.
Then there’s the presumptive assassin’s “getaway plan.” He hailed a cab. Then he let an elderly woman grab it. He then boarded a bus to go back to his apartment. After a police car stopped in front and beeped, he left for – a movie theater, a move that only makes sense as a rendezvous.
Recall that every medical professional who saw JFK at Parkland Hospital in Dallas diagnosed his throat wound as “entry.” Later would come the “national security autopsy” at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
And much more – even though the Oliver Stone-inspired JFK Act, which created the JFK Assassination Records Review Board in 1992, is yet to be honored in either the letter or the spirit of the law. Later will come notes, documents and transcriptions that remain off limits to the public until 2017.
The more recent, post-HSCA years, however, have continued to provide critical revelations with more files declassified and death-bed confessions proffered. Books, such as Ultimate Sacrifice and Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, have capitalized on additional public-record declassifications and evidence. We now know that the well-motivated, well-positioned Mafiosos – Santo Trafficante of Tampa, Carlos Marcello of New Orleans and Johnny Rosselli of Las Vegas – were behind the JFK hit. We know there was a Cuban-exile connection.
We also know that the Trafficante-Marcello-Rosselli infiltration of the coup involving Cuban Commander Almeida gave them a perfect-storm scenario.
They would put the American government, including Attorney General Kennedy, the Cuban-coup point man, in an untenable position. An all-out, truth-seeking investigation was an unacceptable gamble. The US did not want to risk revealing the coup plan to the Soviets and the rest of the world, nor compromising Almeida for possible future use.
The perpetrators would further customize the scheme by leaving behind a dead “patsy” — a Mafia trademark from Sicily — to take the blame. Mob insider Jack Ruby, who previously moonlighted as an informant for the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was ordered to take care of the “patsy” — either with a paid-off cop or by himself.
As for Ruby, the take of G. Robert Blakey, the executive director of the HSCA, still resonates. “The murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby had all the earmarks of an organized crime hit,” assessed Blakey, a former Mafia prosecutor.
The cherry-picked Warren Commission witnesses, Arlen Specter’s “magic bullet” theory, and the sheer number of suspicious post-assassination deaths and outright murders (including Mafiosos Sam Giancana and Rosselli) have become familiar testimony to both the mob hit and the post-facto fix.
Among those who harbored serious doubts about the Warren Commission’s “lone assassin” finding: Lyndon B. Johnson, JFK’s successor. Even though he publicly embraced the commission’s conclusion. According to Joseph Califano, who had left his position as assistant to Army Secretary Cyrus Vance to become a trusted aide to LBJ, Johnson “never believed that one person could have accomplished JFK’s assassination.”
RFK press secretary Frank Mankiewicz wasn’t alone in concluding that JFK had been killed by “the mob, anti-Castro Cuban exiles and maybe rogue CIA agents.”
The three Mafiosos wanted JFK hit before the Dec. 1 Cuba coup. Had the coup been successful, an America-friendly Almeida regime would not have welcomed the mob back to Havana.
But more importantly, JFK’s murder was designed to eliminate the mob-busting priority and power of Attorney General Kennedy, an antagonistic adversary of Lyndon Johnson’s since the 1960 presidential campaign. Absent the patronage of his brother, the president, Robert Kennedy would be neutered as a mob menace. The mob was being targeted and harassed by RFK’s Justice Department. That included, but was hardly limited to, deportation scenarios with Marcello and Rosselli and French Connection-drug interdictions with Trafficante.
And a final note. Dallas was a back-up plan, in case two other downtown-presidential motorcade scenarios fell through earlier in the month. They obviously did. They were Chicago and Tampa.
Chicago was suspiciously canceled at the last minute. Tampa was held with beefed up security, especially around the downtown Floridan Hotel. Another cancellation would have spooked Almeida.
Imagine if the Dallas infamy had been Tampa’s?