While the claim appears in several books, the supporting evidence is weak.
Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman’s book “Legacy of Secrecy” claims that Carlos Marcello, the crime boss in New Orleans in the 1960s, took credit for the killing of President Kennedy in a jailhouse conversation overheard by the FBI in the 1980s.
Frank Ragano, an attorney for Marcello and Santos Trafficante, the crime boss of Tampa, wrote a book saying Trafficante had told him a few days before he died in 1987 that the Mafia had killed Kennedy.
But those claims are impossible to corroborate, according to Anthony Summers & Robbyn Swan. (Summers is author of “Not In Your Lifetime,” one of the best books about JFK’s assassination. Swan is co-author of their book on the Sept. 11 attacks, “The Eleventh Day.”)
Two FBI agents who supervised the wiretapping of Marcello at a federal prison told Summers and Swan that Marcello never made the remarks attributed to him.
Summers and Swan also found that Trafficante’s widow, his two daughters, and several friends and neighbors disputed Ragano’s account.
So the “Mafia done it” theory of JFK’s death lacks evidentiary support on a key point.
The following FBI document relates to Carlos Marcello admitting involvement while at Texarkana prison in December 1985: http://anthonysummersandrobbynswan.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/confidential-source-report.pdf
A leftist killed JFK. Learn to live with it.
But was it Oswald, or someone else, Richard?
Summers is a great investigator and researcher but I question whether this discounts Ragano’s account, who as Trafficante’s personal counsel, was bound by solicitor-client privilege during Trafficante’s lifetime.
Mafia Dons don’t typically tell their darkest secrets to their wives, family, friends and neighbors.
Federal prison guards in hospitals are expressly ordered not to discuss anything with the patients.
The prisoner would have been placed in a Federal prison system hospital anyway.
How does this nonsense get posted and real facts get censored?
Ha. Tell that to Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Sheeran. The feds can (or could be in the sixties) BOUGHT. With CASH. So you are simply misinformed, my little friend.
“Federal prison guards in hospitals”
BULL! I was a local peace officer [senior] and he was being transferred! I knew where he was going and it wasn’t in Texas.
You might need to sharpen your reading skills sport!
“How does this nonsense get posted and real facts get censored?”
I doubt from this that you’d know real facts.
Warning. If your new to this site, your original post will bring attacks discrediting you from photon and friends. You will not be believed by most others until you provide more detail and at least some support.
Was it the Texarkana facility?
Ronnie, thanks but I was [WAS] a PO for 16 years. I can stand the heat. The last man who told me he was going to kill me was executed last June.
My answer to him when he told me that was; “Whatever!”
WHATEVER 🙂 !
Photon, please provide a cite to a statute or regulation in support of your statement: “Federal prison guards in hospitals are expressly ordered not to discuss anything with the patients.”
I was a peace officer in Texas in the 90’s. One midnight shift the sergeant asked if anyone wanted an extra job for the next week watching a federal prisoner at a local hospital. I took it.
When I got to the hospital on the next day, there was a federal marshal sitting outside the room. He asked me if I had been told who I would be watching. I told him no. He said I would be in the room with one of the 4 top mafia bosses of the south. USM’s would remain at the door outside.
The USM also said the prisoner was old and knew he was going to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison hospital..
In the room I fund a little [about 5’4″] “old man”, probably in his early 70’s.
After the first day we started talking. [I was a little wary B4] I asked him point blank who killed JFK. We talked about it for several hours. I wish I had taken notes because it was fascinating and almost 20 years later things have faded, but I do remember some pretty significant stuff!!!
The man I spent the week with said he knew LHO & said LHO was nothing like he had been depicted by the press. Said LHO was very smart & very gregarious [specifically used THAT word!]!
He also said LHO & Ruby knew each other! This man also knew Ruby and had used Ruby to run info back & forth to other groups. He also said Ruby was a loaded canon!
The man [who was NOT Carlos Marcello & which probably tells some folk who I was talking to] when I asked about Marcello said he was too stupid to do anything like the JFK hit. BUT, it could have been KC or Chicago?
Last topic I remember well was about Jim Garrison. This guy called Garrison a clown. He then spent about an hour on some of the things [tricks] he had pulled on Garrison.
This is the first time I knew there was a “JFK facts” site or I would have given this info years ago & aybe remembered more.
My second wife was deeply interested in the JFK mystery and I have also been for years.
I will never forget the watching the former FBI agent say in response to the House Select Committee in the 70’s; “Because I wasn’t asked.” As a PO for 16 years, when he said that I said; “YEP!” You are drilled on “don’t go off and don’t volunteer what you are not asked about!”
I personally think LHO was naval intelligence somehow pushed into the middle of this! Too much about him does not ring true especially since I do believe the man I talked with was not just making stuff up for entertainment!!!
Good luck, I do hope you can get doors & files opened [revealed!]!
Well Mr. Scott, I think you will find some skepticism here about your story. You need to supply more info. I’ve suspected a LHO/ONI connection, with other readers, for a while. If you talked to him 4-5-6 days he must have said more. This would be riveting info for anybody interested. You can’t remember more?
I’ll take a WAG and say this was not from the minimum security facility in Fort Worth. I’m not familiar enough with the height and age of enough don’s to speculate on who you are talking about.
On the other hand, your post is kind of all over the board and some may wonder if your photon talking to himself.
i suspect the mob chiefs provided the seed money to fund some Cuban exiles to knock off JFK. The exiles had been trained by the CIA how to assassinate Castro. The government needed to cover up the unholy trinity of mob, exiles and cia.
No one was in a better position to know about who killed JFK than RFK and according to Brothers (David Talbot, 2007), he told an aide, “If anyone was involved it was organized crime.” Bobby clearly knew the role he played in this because, as Attorney General, he started an unprecedented assault on mob influence. His indictment of Jimmy Hoffa for misuse of Teamsters pension funds threatened the major source of funds that the Chicago mob was using to build Las Vegas. The most important part of Marcello’s involvement was his connection to Oswald. The Chicago mob provided Ruby. No other conspiracy has so many links to so many key players.
Oswald didn’t have an alibi , how in the hell did the people who “set him up” know he would nothave an airtight alibi. Good grief why do I continue to read these websites ? Some people are so freeking naive. Yeah right I’m the naive one….. More conspiracy fail. Keep failing.
Jg,
I’m with you. Oswald had no alibi. He was a nobody.
I’m with you. Nail him. End this website. End this endless discussion. Do it. For me. I need rest.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. I too am weary from this consuming search for the “Truth’ whatever that may be. But I thank God for the books, radio, video, internet and this website among others that have let me come a little closer to it in spite of the efforts of some, even within my own Government to obscure it. Bless the honest researchers and witnesses who have come forward, those ostracized, intimidated or worse. It may never come fully in my lifetime, or ever, but these people have fought the good fight.
After all, what is the CIA’s motto, “The Truth Will Set You Free”.
FREETHEFILES
Some theorize that Oswald had a minor role, either as an undercover agent, informant or co-conspirator.
This way they could control his movements or keep him busy at the right moment while he unwittingly was being set up as a patsy.
My last comment on this thread was Dec. 19, 2013. Let’s reason together, folks. We know that the CIA had tentacles in every aspect of American society legitimate and illegitimate, (political, military, social, religious, academic, business, even fringe groups), as did the FBI. Forget what their charters say, these bureaucrats were hard realist, and master manipulators (read: liars.) When the CIA acquired Executive Action capability, using Mafia and Cuban gangsters, they already had several successful coups under their belts. Let’s weigh the facts: Has the military ever directly carried out a coup in this country? We don’t certainly know. Presidents did NOT get assassinated until AFTER Presidential “protection” was standardized within the Washington bureaucracy. Now, here is the sum of this reasoning: CIA dons military uniforms and ranks, works with national and international crime syndicates, and still has EXECUTIVE ACTION capabilities (worldwide). Given the wide and deep propensities of the CIA, how could anyone doubt CIA involvement? Washington and many local governments (most departments) were so corrupted by organized crime, favoritism, and deference to powerful people, that most people did what they were “told” to do, rather than make life hard for themselves or family members. This was Ruby’s main lament – concern for his family! Killing Kennedy was an “event” many were glad to see come to fruition and would gladly turn the other way, cover it up, or not care about the truth being known. If the assassination remains such a secret, then look at the “secret organizations” that weld power in our society and make the connection to all of them. If I am a secret organization working with you, another secret organization, I can’t reveal your secrets and remain credible to you, or vice versa. CIA, FBI, Secret Service, Military, Mob, Anti-Castro Cubans…the last groups were the least disciplined (restrained by law) and actually had the means, motive, and opportunity to execute Kennedy. Because the Anti-Castro Cubans/Mob were tied into the both the legitimate and illegitimate “bureaucracies,” their “hit” had to be covered up at the highest level of government. Robert Kennedy suspected as much.
The mob and CIA worked together before the assassination and
the mob had a part to play in killing JFK. The main role in the
assassination was probably the CIA and top military officials.
LBJ and Hoover had their backs and covered up all
the evidence. Garrison was probably on the right track. Oswald had
absolutely NO preference for LBJ over JFK and was
framed from the get go.
I can image the mob’s killing JFK in one circumstance, as contract agent for the real perps: CIA agents, high-ranking military officers, certain Secret Service officers, possibly LBJ. The coordination for the hit would have been carried out via the CIA.
The mafia did have some things going for it: a national network; good secrecy; money; motive; capability.
It’s always been clear to me that if the official story is false, and I believe it is, Oswald was very carefully set up, something the mob wouldn’t have done but the CIA could have done, using agents such as Dallas postal official Harry Holmes.
The absence literally of fingerprints regarding the murder is fascinating. Fascinating because the mob has committed so many rub-outs without leaving a trace for the police. The mob is good at murder.
Thing is, the run-of-the-mill mob hit is multiple pistol shots at close range. A la Jack Ruby. Rifle shots required special expertise (or unbelievable luck if you believe Oswald did it). In fact, JFK was the first and only president to be killed by a rifle.
I’m drawn to the special expertise required to kill JFK with a rifle. Americans have been told by Warren Report defenders Oswald could have done it. With which I agree. Thing is, I’m a life NRA member and am familiar with more weapons than most. Hitting a head-sized object moving down and away at about 88 yards with a mis-aligned scope on a rifle not well operated — possible, but beyond a reasonable doubt.
BTW, lots of things are possible. For example, all air molecules will gather together in one corner of your room this evening. Possible. Not probable within an insignificant margin of doubt.
Jonathan writes:
“I can image the mob’s killing JFK in one circumstance, as contract agent for the real perps: CIA agents, high-ranking military officers, certain Secret Service officers, possibly LBJ. The coordination for the hit would have been carried out via the CIA.”
I concur. Reading “I Heard You Paint Houses” helps to clarify some of the mob’s role in the JFK assassination, as participants. But what people forget (I’m not including Jonathan or a few others in this however) is that the mob is INTEGRATED WITH CIA. So did the mob do it? Yes. But they were only a part, let’s say one of the condiments in a fancy sandwich. The Jack Ruby hit of Oswald is explained by Frank Sheeran (through Hoffa who told him) that Ruby bungled his job, which was to make sure Oswald was “kissed” i.e. rubbed out the same day as the assassination. So under threat of his being taken out right then and there by others in the mob, he was given orders to carry out the assassination of Lee Oswald, aided by the corrupt and frankly unsophisticated Dallas PD.
None of this rules out LBJ, some in the military, and of course CIA and FBI as being behind the JFK hit. But the mob played a role in it, most definitely. What you had in this country in 1963 was a nation just coming out of apartheid in the South, with a strong reactionary right wing willing to take us to the brink in a nuclear exchange over “honor” regarding first Berlin and then Cuba, and an intelligence agency wedded to the mob through casino holdings and drug trafficking. Then on top of that you add in mob hatred of the Kennedys for cracking down on their turf, a willing replacement, a resentful replacement who felt the presidency really should have been his all along, a man who had no moral scruples, who would kill for the office, and you have all the sick ingredients for what happened in Dallas in 1963. To the people who say I’m making this stuff up, I can only say that either they are lying or they just don’t know what they’re talking about.
When I started researching the jfk assassination one of the key things I decided to look for was obvious patterns from multiple sources (names places etc.).
What has emerged is that the 3 mafia bosses were absolutely involved providing both money and manpower in the assassination plot as did some very wealthy individuals the CIA and ex military/mercenary personnel.
I will ad that I do not think the FBI got involved until the coverup began and had no choice but to help. Considering there man Oswald was giving the FBI names and locations of the training camps that Kennedy had ordered shut down!
It was the credible informant who heard Marcello’s admission. It wasn’t obtained from a wire tap, so I’m confused about the reference above to comments made by those FBI agents in charge of the wiretapping (that they deny that Marcello made those comments).
Also, don’t Hartman and Waldron explain that the Mafia blackmailed the government into covering it up (otherwise they reveal Amworld plan to the Soviets)?
While the latter explains a cover-up in the following investigation, it doesn’t explain the impersonation of Oswald in Mexico and Phillips lie to the HSCA that the tape of ‘Oswald’ was recycled, when Hoover or the FBI heard it after it’s alleged erasure.
Critics also say that Amworld was only a contingency plan, but would the mob pay a CIA agent $200,000 for a contingency plan (Waldron’s site includes documents that attest to this bribe)?
H & W also say that Almeida’s family were settled out of Cuba, but I don’t know about evidence to support that (I haven’t fully read their book).
The CIA are specialists in disinformation and covert operations. Isn’t it also possible that they opened the door for the Mob to kill JFK so that they can plausibly deny involvement?
At the end of the day, I don’t think it was solely a Mob hit.
There’s a legit question of whether Marcello was suffering from Dementia or Alzeihmers when he spoke about his role in JFK’s murder. But otherwise, the informant who was with Marcello when the confession was made seems pretty credible.
Waldron and Hartmann have spent a lot of time on the Almeida coup plan but there’s very little in terms of documented evidence that confirms such a plan was imminent around the time Kennedy was assassinated.
I think that we tend to tie ourselves up in knots by using imprecise language. We blithely say “the CIA” did it when we really mean that a tiny number of CIA employees set up the assassination and a much larger number of CIA employees covered it up. We are still not entirely sure about all of the details, but we can see the Big Picture. At the same time the VAST majority of CIA employees had nothing at all to do with any of this.
So should should we say without qualification that the CIA were involved in the killing of the President? Probably not. The qualification is that it was “rogue elements” in the company and not the company itself.
The same is true when we say that The Mafia did it. Did what, exactly? Provided a few shooters with guns? Almost certainly. Provided a few drivers and safe houses? Probably. Provided suitcases of cash to key members of the various team? Certainly. Set up distractions to enable the real shooters to escape? Probably.
So should we say without qualification that The Mob killed JFK? Definitely not. We’re they involved in some supporting ways? Probably.
Calling CIA “the company” is a tacit admission that in the context of the government, it is an organization best recognized through rogue behavior.
Characterizing executive action against the president as rogue, in deference to those uninvolved but within the same organization, is denial of the obvious: that the agency was (and still is) in the business of assassination of anyone deemed dangerous to the status quo of national security. Considering the mountains of evidence that CIA and other governmental organizations were threatened by even the slightest diversity in culture and thought (eg, Red Scare, the struggle named Civil Rights), let alone the threat to its own existence that a Kennedy regime represented to the CIA, it has never taken special genius to realize what and who national security represented; and it wasn’t of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The CIA created the conditions for the well-deserved “skepticism”. “Rogue” is not a qualification that should be held without qualification.
I don’t think the CIA as an organisation was involved in the assassination of JFK (I am still not sure what actually happened, apart from the end result of course). However, there is clearly a possibility that a very small number of CIA officers were involved in the killing. They would have to have considerable power in the organisation, have the organisational ability to successfully carry out and cover up their possible involvement, and be able to blackmail the entire American intelligence community into not wanting to carry out a detailed and comprehensive investigation into the assassination. If CIA officers were involved then they probably would have used anti-Castro Cubans, or the Mafia as the hitmen.
“I think that we tend to tie ourselves up in knots by using imprecise language. We blithely say “the CIA” did it when we really mean that a tiny number of CIA employees set up the assassination and a much larger number of CIA employees covered it up. We are still not entirely sure about all of the details, but we can see the Big Picture. At the same time the VAST majority of CIA employees had nothing at all to do with any of this.”~echelon
I agree with this comment by ‘echelon’ but from a totally different angle. I think that the hit was systemic, that the entire military industrial complex was involved. But this does not mean every single person working in military industry, or in government or the intelligence community. This system is hierarchical and compartmentalized; machinists, foot soldiers and filing clerks do their jobs on a need to know basis, and they need know very little.
A systemic hit of JFK means that there was a consensus at the highest levels of government and business to remove Kennedy. A coup d’etat.
\\][//
Everyone should note that the government has not downplayed mafia involvement in the assassination. The W.C. ignored the mafia. Robert Blakey fingered the mafia.
The significance of Blakey’s fingering is that he didn’t point at the CIA (or the military or Secret Service). So no one cut him off. He was free to finger the mafia. Meaning the mafia had no over-arching power. Over-arching power was held in the days of the HSCA by the CIA and the president (i.e., Justice Department and Secret Service).
Thanks Jimmy Carter.
When a man like Santos Trafficante is reported to have said, you judge for yourself:
He talked various things . One of the things he said
Hoffa could not secure the loan so far because he had a lot of
troubles with the brothers Kennedy.
Well, he was very much upset. He said that the
way the President was getting into Hoffa, a man of the workers,
blue collar, and a man that was a very hard-working individual,
and that at the same time he was very much upset, I mean, he
thought for a long period of time.
At one point he said, “You see this man, he is not
going to be reelected, there is no doubt about it, he has been the
man that has been giving everybody a lot of troubles and he is not
going to be reelected” and I don’t know why he said that to me or
anything. Then he said—
Well, he said he is not going to be reelected, you
don’t understand me, he is going to be hit.
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol5/pdf/HSCA_Vol5_0927_4_Aleman.pdf
Waldron and Hartman may have done good work in parts of their book i.e. tampa plot and chicago plot but the books thesis is all wrong. summers book on the other hand is excellent.
What’s wrong about the thesis in the Waldron/Hartmann book?
The difficult part of their model, for me, is the supposition that both David Atlee Phillips and David Sanchez Morales were involved in the assassination, but it went to higher in the CIA than them.
I would think the CIA would have found out they were involved and their careers would be slowly and quietly ended for killing the Commander in Chief. After the assassination Phillips rose to Chief of Western Hemisphere Division, the highest you could go without a Presidential Appointment. And the career of Morales didn’t seem to stall either.
These two men seem to have had a real love of the CIA and a respect and admiration for their superiors. I just can’t imagine that they’d put the Agency that made them who they were in such jeopardy.
I also don’t think I’ve seen any data that they were the types that would do something so monumental without the ok of their superiors – Morales especially. I know that Mr. Morley has written that Win Scott didn’t entirely trust Phillips and felt that he ran his own operations outside the normal command structure – but it seemed to be at the behest of a Helms or Angleton.
To conclude my opinion, if Morales or Phillips were involved (and I am willing to put money on that) it would extremely unlikely that they would do it without a wink or a nod from a Helms, Dulles, or Angleton.
A related issue is the screwy concept that the Mafia would make this decision on their own without the CIA or other government agencies figuring it out and making life impossibly difficult for them. If Marcello and Trafficante ended up dead, wouldn’t many just conclude they got into a gang war? What evidence would they have had lying around to connect them and the CIA to the Castro Plots? I’m not convinced that would stop the CIA from just doing them in.
I haven’t read ‘LoS’ but Waldron’s latest book(which covers a lot of the same ground as LOS) doesn’t seem to suggest that Phillips and Morales were participants in the Kennedy assassination(at least not witting participants).
Waldron seems to focus more on Bernard Barker and other anti-Castro Cubans that had ties to organized crime. Barker was the Watergate Burgler and former CIA agent who was fired by Richard Helms.
Waldron was on Hartmann’s radio show a month ago repeating the name’s Phillips and Morales.
It doesn’t matter anyway, his model cannot explain so much data it should be expanded or more likely discarded.
I am as certain I can get that the Cubans were involved. And I think it extremely likely that Roselli was involved, somewhat less so with Trafficante.
Either way, the planning seems to fall at the feet of the intelligence folk.
“Waldron was on Hartmann’s radio show a month ago repeating the name’s Phillips and Morales.”
I don’t think researchers can ignore the hints Phillips and Morales gave later in their lives regarding their links to the Kennedy assassination. But Waldron never seemed to suggest they were witting participants in the JFK plot.
However, Waldron’s most recent book focuses on the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans who had worked for the CIA while also having underworld/mob ties.
The fact that Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante Jr. died in their own beds from old age speaks volumes.
How you ask…?
Go read “Dope Inc.” , then ask yourself how you ever thought the Mafia wasn’t involved…
Someone had to get paid for the operation, and most of the remuneration was not in cold hard cash….Follow that trail, it’s not very difficult…
At least since the 1940s, at the top of the food chain you have the Pentagon and its intelligence agencies, plus NATO. The CIA is at the next level down, closer to the operational level, often getting most of the negative attention from the public and the press. Organized crime (which includes Cuban exiles and other foreign assets in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa) is at the bottom, usually carrying out the dirty work.
All three levels are involved with Wall Street, big industry and finance, as well as the illegal economy (drugs, gun-running, money-laundering, human trafficking, etc).
“At least since the 1940s, at the top of the food chain you have the Pentagon and its intelligence agencies, plus NATO. The CIA is at the next level down, closer to the operational level, often getting most of the negative attention from the public and the press.”
Yes, it’s started to concern me that the vast majority of our collective attention has been focused on the CIA, or to be more precise, certain elements within it. Hardly any post in any thread discusses the involvement of military intelligence, DIA, ONI, etc – I don’t even know all the acronyms. Could it be possible that there are several set of patsies in this case, and some of them could be well-known members of the group of usual suspects? Perhaps they were not as witting as we thought?
This seems to be Simpich’s hypothesis relating to James Angleton, though I’ve still to read that chapter.
It is doubtful the “top” mafia chiefs were directly involved; however, Bill Harvey and Johnny Roselli became very close after meetings about killing Castro. Harvey also was close to David Morales. All three shared a penchant for assassination, intrigue, and getting things done. In fact, Roselli was involved in a film that had the exact scenario used to frame Oswald. Morales was a CIA asset trained in assassination techniques. Harvey was a CIA hardliner…all three were dangerous and persons of interest regarding Kennedy’s Assassination. JM/WAVE and hatred for Kennedy was the common denominators for all three.
The despicable way Roselli was killed later shows that Roselli may as well have been been JFK. We see how the Mafia kills people, and why. It’s kind of like Bush 2 saying “you’re with us, or against us”.
I find it easy to believe (a) some mobsters had fore-knowledge of JFK’s assassination, and (b) Jack Ruby acted at the behest of the mafia in killing Oswald.
The murders of Roselli and Giancana support my belief (a). Ruby’s whole history and Gail Raven’s story support my belief (b).
But that’s it for the mafia, I believe. The main perpetrators I’ve come to believe were a mix of CIA, Secret Service, and military officers.
On the Marcello confession, why should we take the FBI’s word for it? They haven’t released all the CAMTEX files yet. Jack Van Laningham, the informant assigned to Marcello seems pretty credible.
The circumstantial evidence of Mob involvement in Kennedy’s assassination seems very strong. After all, they had the motive, means, and opportunity plus Jack Ruby’s links and contacts with the mob were very extensive.
I haven’t read ‘Legacy of Secrecy’ but I recently read Lamar Waldron’s latest book ‘Hidden History of the JFK assassination’ which provides a lot of detail about Marcello and the CAMTEX records.
The Mob had “the motive, means, and opportunity” to do what, exactly?
To kill JFK and set up Oswald to take the blame…
Sure it’s possible one of the shooters that day had Mob connections. The planners probably had more than one team on standby and it’s also possible that some of those people could have been Mafia hit men.
Providing a few gunmen does not normally create a situation in which you can shoot the most powerful man in the world.
What else do you think the Mob did to set up the assassination?
For example, how did they get Oswald the job at the TSBD?
How did they impersonate him in Mexico City a few weeks before the assassination?
How did they control the medical procedures and evidence produced as a result of those procedures, to support the pretence that all shots came from the rear?
Etc., etc..
You raise good points and I agree that a successful conspiracy against the POTUS would’ve been difficult for the Mob alone to pull off.
As far as Mexico City goes, I’ve never been totally convinced that Oswald’s activities(or supposed activities) there were directly related to the plot against JFK.
Legacy Of Secrecy is a good book with a lot of interesting stuff in it. I think the authors’ problem, however, is that they want to pin so much of the crime on the mob. They seem to want to believe that they manipulated the whole thing. So everything tends to flow from the mob setting up Oswald, paying off exile leaders, having Roselli as their inside man compromising the CIA over the CIA/Mafia plots against castro. But people like Roselli had divided loyalties. He was apparently very loyal to the Cubans with whom he worked, as well as to the CIA handlers. He was close friends with William Harvey. I don’t really see the mob blackmailing the CIA into inaction after the fact. I see the mob as being involved, with them maybe even believing that they were the idea of the deed. But I believe that the conspiracy came from a higher level than them.
The Mafia could have pulled this off because the CIA was using some of them,along with possibly at least one bad dude from the French Connection,in a squad to assassinate world leaders. Remember the Red Scare? How could they have done this? This team operated in secret. Did they really kill JFK? We may never know for sure. However anyone who has done thorough research can find a puzzle. Only problem with this puzzle is that certain officials are discrediting certain pieces of it.
That question may be in inverse order. The intelligence agency may have placed Oswald in the TSBD and then manipulated things to bring Kennedy along that route.
A Frontline and now deceased journalist Jack Newfield’s investigation into the possible underworld connections to the Kennedy assassination.
The mob alone did not have the ability to cancel the photographers’ vehicle in front of the limousine and do other security-stripping in the motorcade:
http://www.jfkessentials.com/forum/index.php?topic=83.0
I recently read both Legacy of Secrecy and The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination. Legacy of Secrecy is a marathon of a book filled with many “pieces of the puzzle”. Hidden History is a much quicker and engaging read that builds a credible overall scenario of the events surrounding the JFK murder.
The suppression of the truth from so many groups involved around the events of that day has really kept the truth from rising to the surface. Waldron, with his research of twenty-five-plus years, has painted a pretty clear picture of what happened. Unfortunately, it appears that no matter how conclusive the evidence is now or what additional evidence is uncovered in the future, many people will continue to buy into what the government presented long ago and what the mainstream media, even to this day, continues to promote.
I am looking forward to the day when the real truth eclipses the lie. We look to our leaders in government to be “truth seekers” but they continue to be noncommittal, avoiding making waves or being advised by the agencies (FBI and CIA) not to stir the pot. I agree with Waldron who asks that we contact our officials and put pressure on them to be more transparent and release the files held for over fifty years.
The question should be why should we believe Laningham instead of the FBI.