Legacy of Secrecy (23 page)

employed his own powerful Washington lobbyist and had a close rela-

tionship with the Mafia boss of the nation’s capital, Joe Nesline. Look-

ing ahead, Marcello knew that any of the presidential options in 1964

were preferable to another four years of JFK. In November 1963, LBJ’s

political stock was so low that no one would have predicted that he

would win the 1964 election by a landslide. Newspapers and TV indi-

cated Richard Nixon or Arizona senator Barry Goldwater as the likely

Republican nominees for the 1964 race, and neither represented a threat

to Marcello. Nixon had the Marcello and Mafia support noted earlier and

though Goldwater had served with JFK on the Senate crime committee,

the Arizona senator had shown no real interest in going after the Mafia

that had killed two of his best friends, in 1955 and 1958. In short, JFK’s

murder would be good for Marcello both now and for years to come.

In New Orleans, Marcello had the police and the local FBI in his

pocket, minimizing his risk if the investigation of JFK’s murder ever

focused in that direction. The crime lord also had ties to lawmen in

Dallas, like Sheriff Bill Decker, who was riding in the lead car of JFK’s

motorcade along with Dallas Police Chief Bill Curry. On an undercover

police tape, Decker’s predecessor described him as “a payoff man” for

a Dallas gambling kingpin. Decker freely admitted to having a long

friendship with Joe Campisi, a Marcello lieutenant in Dallas and one of

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Ruby’s good friends.2 When Marcello’s Dallas Mafia boss, Joseph Civ-

ello, wanted to be paroled for a narcotics conviction, Decker provided a

character reference for the mobster.3 Sheriff Decker’s mob ties were not

that unusual for law enforcement officials in some major American cit-

ies at the time, and while Decker had no knowing involvement in JFK’s

assassination, the connection was there in case Marcello needed it.

Marcello had many ways to feed disinformation even to federal

authorities, and to essentially force agencies to protect his associates

and even himself. As documented throughout this book, most of the

dozen or so people knowingly involved in assassinating JFK were gov-

ernment assets, informants, or agents who were all capable of supplying

false or misleading information into the system, before, during, or after

JFK’s murder. We’ve noted the number of Marcello associates who had

infiltrated the JFK-Almeida coup plan, and Marcello’s own claim that he

was part of the CIA-Mafia plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. Files at the

National Archives from the JFK Assassination Records Review Board

contain the allegation that an AMWORLD case officer was the liaison

between the CIA and Marcello. Therefore, even if some lead should

point to Marcello or his men, certain US intelligence officials would

have to hide that information in order to divert suspicion from them-

selves and their agency. They would have to either keep their suspicions

to themselves or accept assurances from their men that any seeming

involvement in JFK’s death was simply a matter of their having been

part of the same operation as Oswald, who was either a bad apple or

working for some foreign power.

Marcello and his partners in the assassination had so many connec-

tions to US intelligence and law enforcement that they are often over-

looked by historians and journalists. For example, one way information

could have gone directly to (or from) Desmond FitzGerald and Richard

Helms was through E. Howard Hunt. The following is just a partial list

of Hunt’s anti-Castro associates who worked with the Mafia:

• Hunt’s best friend, Manuel Artime, who was working on the CIA-

Mafia plots and was later found to be involved in drug trafficking

• Artime’s assistant, Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, who was involved

in drug running by the time of Iran-Contra, and likely much

earlier

• David Morales, the Miami CIA Operations Chief who headed the

CIA-Mafia plots at that time and was close to Johnny Rosselli

• Frank Fiorini, the Trafficante bagman who was a major source of

information for Hunt’s assistant, Bernard Barker

• Exile leader Tony Varona, who worked with Trafficante and

Rosselli on the CIA-Mafia Castro assassination plots, and who had

accepted a $200,000 bribe from Rosselli’s mob associates just three

months earlier

• Carlos Prio, the corrupt former Cuban president who was linked

to drugs and angry at being excluded from the coup plan by the

Kennedys

At a deniable arm’s length, the list even includes Hunt’s much

admired patron, Richard Helms, who at that time was the highest CIA

official to know about the continued use of the Mafia and European

criminals like QJWIN. We noted earlier Helms’s comment about David

Ferrie’s work for the CIA, which appears to have been corroborated by

the later statements of New Orleans CIA Deputy Chief Hunter Leake.

Marcello would have known that CIA officials had their own inter-

ests to protect if Ferrie’s name ever threatened to surface after JFK’s

assassination.

In New Orleans on November 22, Marcello had David Ferrie sitting

with him in the courtroom, as the closing arguments wound to a close.4

Ferrie’s presence gave him the perfect alibi for the time of JFK’s murder.

Marcello had spent much time with Ferrie in recent weeks, including

two full weekends at the huge Churchill Farms property. From all indi-

cations, Marcello viewed Ferrie as a brilliant man, and in some ways he

was. Based on papers later found by police, Ferrie had even calculated

the distance shells ejected from a rifle would travel, as if he wanted

to make sure that the shells police found after a shooting would be in

the proper place. While Marcello may have thought the highly intel-

ligent Ferrie had planned his actions carefully enough, the crime boss

didn’t realize there was one very small thing Ferrie had apparently

overlooked.

In Dallas on November 22, Jack Ruby was both tired and wired from his

busy previous day and late night. At noon, Ruby had been at the
Dallas

Morning News
building, four blocks from Dealey Plaza. However, as

JFK’s motorcade neared the area, Ruby disappeared, apparently leaving

the building for almost half an hour, according to an FBI report.5 Ruby’s

exact location and activities at the time of JFK’s assassination can’t be

established, aside from a comment by a Dallas TV reporter that he saw

Ruby near the Texas School Book Depository within moments of the

assassination.6 However, Ruby’s actions leading up to November 22

provide insight into what he was probably up to.

Ruby had recently been talking about leaving his modest Oak Cliff

neighborhood (the same area in which Oswald lived) and moving to

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a new apartment in the most expensive and exclusive part of Dallas,

Turtle Creek. Three days earlier, Ruby had talked to his tax attorney,

claiming “he had a connection who would supply him money to settle

his long-standing [IRS bill]” of more than $40,000.7 Ruby had been in

Chicago just days before JFK canceled his motorcade there, where he

had received $7,000 in cash from a Hoffa associate in the coffee shop of

the Bismarck Hotel.8 But that amount wouldn’t come close to paying his

IRS bill, let alone his expensive new rent. Clearly, on November 22, 1963,

Ruby was expecting a huge sum of money, since his checking account

contained only $246.65.

Ruby’s clubs, the seedy Carousel strip club and the lesser-known

Vegas Club, which he owned with his sister, weren’t doing especially

well, in spite of the shady side ventures Ruby ran, which included

gambling and prostitution. Ruby’s gunrunning was a fraction of what

it had been around the time of the Cuban Revolution, especially now

that the Kennedys had directed the CIA to cut off support for all but

a small handful of exile groups. Ruby’s mechanic, Donnell D. Whit-

ter, was also involved in gunrunning, and had been arrested by Dallas

police on November 18, 1963, as part of the gun ring that generated the

FBI and Treasury Department reports about the upcoming US invasion

of Cuba.

Ruby was part of Marcello’s and Trafficante’s portion of the French

Connection heroin network. An FBI document notes that since 1956,

“Jack Ruby of Dallas [had been given] the okay to operate [for a] large

narcotics setup operation between Mexico, Texas, and the East.” Jour-

nalist Michael Valentine has documented Ruby’s ties to the heroin net-

work, using Federal Bureau of Narcotics reports and interviews with

retired agents. They confirm that Civello, who ran Dallas for Marcello,

controlled the heroin business in that city. Valentine also cites the Ken-

nedy crime hearings in January 1958, in which a Bureau of Narcotics

supervisor linked “the Civello family in Dallas and . . . Carlos Marcello

in New Orleans [and] Santo Trafficante in Tampa” to the drug rackets.

Several Ruby associates and Dallas heroin traffickers also had links to

Michel Victor Mertz. As with Ruby’s strip club, gambling, and prosti-

tution rackets, the Dallas nightclub owner gained protection from law

enforcement for his narcotics activities by being helpful to them, and

sometimes acting as an informant. 9

However, Ruby was a relatively low-level, and thus low-paid, part

of the heroin network, so his huge financial windfall would have to

come from other activities. As we discussed earlier, Congressional

investigators found that Ruby’s long-distance calls had skyrocketed

as November 22 approached, an indication that something big was in

the works, something that required the careful use of cover stories and

intermediaries.

JFK had been in Houston the previous day for a motorcade, and

former FBI agent William Turner found and summarized a Secret Ser-

vice report that stated: “Numerous witnesses identify . . . Jack Ruby as

being in Houston, Texas, on November 21, for several hours, one block

from the President’s entrance route and from the Rice Hotel where he

stayed.”10 Ruby was apparently shadowing JFK, getting a firsthand look

at his security precautions.

Ruby’s extensive police connections in Dallas were useful to Marcello.

One of Ruby’s musicians later told the FBI that he had seen “between

150 to 200 [Dallas] police officers at the Carousel [Club] at one time

or another,” and another Ruby associate put the number even higher,

saying Ruby “was well acquainted with virtually every member of the

Dallas Police.”11 Officers didn’t have to pay for drinks at Ruby’s clubs,

and were sometimes provided with women. FBI reports note that Ruby

was “very good friends” with Captain Will Fritz, who ran Homicide for

the Dallas police, and that Ruby “was allowed the complete run of the

Homicide Bureau.” Ruby had even vacationed with the Dallas “Chief

of Police” a few years earlier, according to another FBI report.12

Ruby could be helpful to Marcello by finding out things like the fact

that 365 Dallas policemen were slated to be at Love Field when JFK

arrived, and 60 would be at the Trade Mart as security at JFK’s Dallas

speech, but only a scattered few would be at Dealey Plaza.13 Ruby would

also have known that Dallas Officer J. D. Tippit, who worked after hours

for Ruby’s best friend, had been having an affair and had gotten his

girlfriend pregnant.14 Tippit needed money to deal with the crisis, and

his situation allowed Ruby or his associates to exert pressure on him. If

Tippit were told to be in a certain place to make an important arrest, for

which he would be well paid, he wouldn’t be in a position to refuse or

ask too many questions.

Journalist Seth Kantor documented that later on November 22, 1963,

Ruby had $7,000 on him, as well as his loaded pistol, so he might have

had both when JFK went through Dealey Plaza. That’s plenty of money

for payoffs, a gun for any trouble, and even a built-in alibi if Ruby needed

to shoot someone near the Depository or in his neighborhood (he could

claim he thought he was being robbed). But all indications are that Ruby

preferred to simply arrange for a Dallas policeman to take care of anyone

who needed to be silenced.

As we’ve noted, about two months earlier Ruby had met with Johnny

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Rosselli in Miami twice, though FBI reports about the meeting van-

ished during a Congressional investigation. In fact, FBI surveillance

reports for Rosselli in Miami are completely missing for the months

surrounding those visits. Around the same time that Ruby met with Ros-

selli, author Peter Dale Scott notes that David Atlee Phillips was at the

Miami CIA station, no doubt meeting with his associate David Morales,

who was very close to Rosselli. Phillips even had a good friend in com-

mon with Ruby: Gordon McClendon, a Dallas radio station owner who