Legacy of Secrecy (15 page)

the city, state, and region for Trafficante, and to feed information to law

enforcement agencies that could help the Tampa godfather. In this way,

de la Llana was like a Tampa version of the Chicago Mafia’s Richard

Cain: The number-two man in the Cook County/Chicago sheriff’s

office, Cain was actually a “made” member of the Mafia named Ricardo

Scalzetti. While de la Llana was not an actual member of the Mafia, a

high-ranking Florida law enforcement source who worked with him said

that de la Llana didn’t try to hide his affinity for the Mafia: He “talked

like a classic Italian gangster,” and when he was off duty he dressed like

one, too. Our source said that de la Llana was originally a good cop, but

he had been “caught [up] in some mob deal” and “turned bad.” By 1963,

de la Llana was “feeding information to Trafficante” on a regular basis,

his position secure because of Trafficante’s political influence, even

when new Police Chiefs came into office.9 With someone like de la Llana

in place, it’s clear why Trafficante felt confident enough to plan a JFK

hit in Tampa, since he would know if his plot leaked, and he had

someone on the inside to ensure the patsy blamed for JFK’s death was

quickly killed.

In Sgt. de la Llana’s brief testimony at the October 15, 1963, Senate

hearings, he didn’t mention Trafficante, though the godfather’s name

appears in a (no doubt carefully) prepared statement that was submitted

for the record. That statement was devoted primarily to a minor Mafia

courier who had already been arrested and who had an extensive FBI

record. The main testimony about Trafficante came from Tampa Police

Chief Neil G. Brown, who would soon be replaced by Chief J. P. Mullins.

Chief Brown’s testimony foreshadowed the events to come in Dal-

las and explain why Trafficante felt his role in JFK’s murder could stay

hidden. Brown began by showing a large chart of organized crime in

Tampa, with Trafficante’s name at the very top. Brown also talked about

Trafficante’s ties to Rosselli’s boss, Giancana, and to a French Connec-

tion heroin partner of Michel Victor Mertz. Next came accounts of Traf-

ficante’s direct ties to several murders, in addition to many others he

had ordered.

Chief Brown called Trafficante a suspect in the notorious barbershop

slaying of New York mob boss Albert Anastasia. Brown also said that

Trafficante had “been picked up by the police for questioning about the

gangland slayings of three [other] men” over the years, but authorities

were unable to prosecute Trafficante for those hits. Usually, Trafficante

took care to insulate himself from mob executions, using intermediaries

and professional hit men to carry out his dirty work.

One of the Trafficante hits Chief Brown discussed would have

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particular resonance on November 22. Brown said that Trafficante had

targeted a victim whose “head was blown off [while he] was seated in

his automobile.” In a further eerie foreshadowing of what would hap-

pen two days after JFK’s murder, Brown said that in the Tampa case, the

main “suspect in this murder was himself murdered.”

Chief Brown pointed out the “relative infrequency with which such

professional murders are successfully prosecuted,” and explained why.

He said that only one of twenty-three Mafia murders in Tampa had been

solved, and the lone exception was not a typical Mafia hit. In contrast,

he explained that 97 percent of non-Mafia murders in Tampa had been

solved.

Brown explained that it was very “difficult to obtain evidence suf-

ficient for successful prosecution of Mafia members, because the wit-

nesses who might offer such evidence have always been reluctant to

do so [due to] fear of Mafia reprisals, since it is common knowledge in

Tampa that the Mafia does not hesitate to murder for such reprisals.”

Brown agreed with Senator McClellan’s blunt assessment that the wit-

nesses “know that the penalty for them talking would be death.” In fact,

Chief Brown was able to point out three reprisal hits in Tampa that were

motivated by “the Mafia’s knowledge . . . that the victims had given to

legal authorities evidence incriminating Mafia members.”10

Brown’s testimony about “reprisal hits” helps to explain Trafficante’s

confidence that he would be able to get away with helping Marcello

and Rosselli murder JFK. Not only witnesses, but also those in—and

even on the fringes of—the underworld would know the danger of

helping authorities. That was also why Trafficante and the other mob

bosses used experienced people they had worked with before, who were

familiar with the penalty for talking, or even for failure. This explains

the risks Trafficante’s associates took, such as Jack Ruby’s shooting a

suspect inside police headquarters after his efforts to find a policeman

to silence Oswald apparently failed.

Chief Brown left office soon after his Congressional testimony, but his

replacement, J. P. Mullins, was even tougher on Trafficante and orga-

nized crime. However, Sgt. de la Llana was still on the force, able to feed

inside information to Trafficante.11 This connection was crucial for Traf-

ficante if word of the Tampa attempt threatened to leak to the public after

JFK’s assassination, or if leads from Dallas ever pointed to Trafficante.

If either of those scenarios occurred, Trafficante’s infiltration of the

impending JFK-Almeida coup plan could be used to prevent too much

digging in his direction. Of the five major exile leaders and groups in

the coup plan, Trafficante had bought off his old associate Varona, had

arms and drug ties to Artime, had potentially neutralized Ray by link-

ing Oswald to Ray’s group in Dallas, and had formerly dealt arms to

Menoyo (whose partner, Veciana, had also been set up to meet Oswald

in Dallas). Trafficante’s drug network with Mertz and Marcello ran

through Fort Benning, home to the coup’s Cuban American troops. As

noted later in this chapter, Trafficante even had John Martino ready to

tell journalists, if necessary, about JFK’s invasion plan for Cuba.

We mentioned earlier Trafficante’s significant use of his drug net-

work in the JFK hit, which included Martino, Mertz, Ruby, and Nicoletti.

Other Trafficante drug-trafficking associates linked to the hit included

former death-squad leader Rolando Masferrer, whom Varona brought

secretly into the coup plan after the $200,000 bribe mentioned in Chapter

2. There was also Masferrer’s partner, Eladio del Valle, who was close

to Marcello’s David Ferrie—Cuban officials place del Valle in Dallas on

November 22, 1963, based on the testimony of captured Cuban exile

Tony Cuesta.12

According to Cuesta, former Trafficante bodyguard and drug traf-

ficker Herminio Diaz was also in Dallas on November 22. Cuban offi-

cials say that the Cuban Diaz was “a hit man from the forties” who had

been part of “an assassination plot against Costa Rican President Jose

Figureres in 1956.”13 CIA files say that Diaz worked at a mob-owned

casino in Havana, first as a cashier and then, in 1959–1960, as chief of

security.14 An FBI memo links Diaz to two of Trafficante’s men, who

were running guns to Cuba at the time with Jack Ruby.15 In July 1963,

Diaz came to America, where Cuban officials say he worked with Traf-

ficante and Varona. By September 1963, Diaz was of interest to the CIA’s

Special Affairs Staff (SAS), which Desmond FitzGerald ran for Richard

Helms. In addition to AMWORLD, FitzGerald and Helms were run-

ning the unauthorized CIA-Mafia plots and assassin recruiter QJWIN

at the time.

One reason Herminio Diaz would have been of interest to FitzGerald

was that in Diaz’s July 1963 interview by one of David Morales’s AMOT

assets, Diaz mentioned the names of Juan Almeida and Rolando Cubela,

saying they were part of a group of disgruntled Cuban officials who

wanted to act against Castro. Diaz had some of the details wrong, but

even mentioning Almeida and Cubela was enough to get FitzGerald’s

attention. Even though another CIA asset said that Herminio was “fond

of gambling and capable of committing any crime for money,” the CIA

considered using him as an “agent candidate or . . . asset.”16

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Diaz was apparently part of one of Helms and FitzGerald’s unauthor-

ized Castro-assassination operations by November 22, because shortly

after the events in Dallas, a State Department memo to the White House

national security advisor would link Diaz to “an [unsuccessful] attempt

to assassinate Castro in December 1963.”17 But even though Diaz caught

the CIA’s eye, he was still working in Trafficante’s lucrative drug net-

work. A CIA file confirms that Diaz was “smuggling narcotics or acting

as courier between narcotics traffickers in Mexico and US.” Diaz even

“had meetings with local Mexican Police Chief, who [was his] personal

friend. Diaz traveled frequently between Miami and New York and

always seemed to have large amounts [of] money.”18 Cuban officials

described Diaz as a “mulatto” or “dark skinned,” and claimed he was

in the Texas School Book Depository as JFK’s motorcade approached.19

Based on statements from Harry Williams, law enforcement, and Con-

gressional testimony, Trafficante apparently had yet another CIA man

working for him in Dallas on November 22. Seen near the “grassy knoll”

just down the street from the Book Depository, this Cuban exile was a

full-time CIA employee with longtime Mafia ties. He was, and for years

to come would continue to be, close to two Trafficante drug associates.

A seemingly average family man, he shared the sexual predilection of

Ferrie, del Valle, and sometimes Ruby for teenage boys, which made him

subject to blackmail if he ever tried to refuse Trafficante.20

Because Trafficante spoke Spanish well and had spent so much time

in Cuba, he became the Mafia’s main liaison to Cuban exiles, a role

he would maintain into the 1970s (with exiles like Artime) and 1980s

(with Artime’s second-in-command, Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, linked

to drug trafficking). For the JFK hit, Trafficante knew how to exploit the

exiles’ personal weaknesses and desire to see Fidel eliminated. Along

with the Mafia, certain Cuban exiles had been excluded from the coup

plan, so they had no incentive to see it go forward. Also, by November

1963 some exiles, as well as Trafficante’s CIA employee, had learned

about JFK’s secret peace feelers to Castro. They no doubt worried that

JFK would call off the coup if there was a breakthrough in the peace

talks. After the sense of betrayal some, like David Morales, felt over the

Bay of Pigs, it’s easy to imagine exiles working for Trafficante wanting

to ensure they wouldn’t suffer betrayal by JFK again. This explains why

some Cuban exiles and CIA operatives were willing to help assassinate

JFK, even with the JFK-Almeida coup plan fast approaching.

To Artime’s aide Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, even the Cuban Mis-

sile Crisis had been a betrayal by the Kennedys. Quintero said, “Talk

about the word ‘treason’ at the Bay of Pigs; this [the Cuban Missile Cri-

sis] was even bigger for us, the people involved.” As Miami journalist

Don Bohning wrote, exiles like Quintero had been certain the Missile

Crisis “would be the end of Fidel.”21 When it wasn’t, perhaps Quintero

and a few others became receptive to what Trafficante had in mind. In

a letter to the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, one of Quin-

tero’s associates says Quintero admitted to some involvement in JFK’s

assassination.22

Trafficante knew that getting rid of Fidel was still a priority for the

exiles, but if he told them JFK’s assassination could be blamed on a

Cuban or apparent Cuban sympathizer, then the US military invasion

they knew was almost ready might well go forward in retaliation. In

such a scenario, the US invasion wouldn’t be the carefully staged and

sequenced operation in which Almeida invited US forces into Cuba,

but would instead be a full-scale attack on the Cuban leaders who had

apparently assassinated JFK.

Johnny Rosselli, the Chicago Mafia’s pointman in Hollywood and Las

Vegas, would later confess his role in JFK’s assassination, as did Traf-

ficante and Marcello. Rosselli was crucial to their plot to kill JFK, due to

his years of clandestine work for the CIA. Though all of those involved

with Marcello and Trafficante in the JFK plot had been CIA informants,

assets, or operatives, Rosselli was the Mafioso with the highest role

with the CIA.23 After taking on a key position in the CIA-Mafia plots

in the summer of 1960, Rosselli had grown close to hard-drinking CIA

official William Harvey in 1962. After Harvey left Cuban operations in

1963, replaced by the more office-bound Desmond FitzGerald, Rosselli

remained friends with Harvey while growing close to Miami’s David

Morales, who was prone to bouts of heavy drinking. Rosselli’s friend-