Legacy of Secrecy (38 page)

sent home because of the tragedy. Fonzi writes that, as Odio thought

more about the assassination, “she began to feel terribly, uncontrollably

frightened, and, while walking to her car, fainted. She remembers wak-

ing up in the hospital.”31

Odio’s younger sister Annie, who had also seen the three men back

in September, joined her at the hospital. The notes from Fonzi’s first

interview with Silvia Odio say that later on November 22, Silvia was:

. . . watching television with her sister and seeing Oswald . . . one of

the men who came to the apartment. “We were just so scared because

we both recognized him immediately.” They both were extremely

frightened and very anxious about the welfare of their many siblings

and their mother and father in prison in Cuba and, since they didn’t

know what was going on or whether or not there had been a con-

spiracy of many involved in the assassination, they both decided not

to bring their experience to the attention of the authorities. (“I never

wanted to go to them, I was afraid. I was young at the time, I was

recently divorced, I had young children, I was going through hell.

Besides, it was such a responsibility to get involved because who is

going to believe you, who is going to believe that I had Oswald in

my house? I was scared and my sister Annie was very scared at the

time, she was only 14.”)

The only authority figure Silvia had told about Oswald’s visit at the

time it happened was Dr. Burton Einspruch, who had had been counsel-

ing Silvia about her family difficulties. Dr. Einspruch confirmed that to

Fonzi, saying he recalled Silvia’s telling him about the three men’s visit

prior to JFK’s assassination.

The only other person Silvia confided in was her sister Sarita. How-

ever, Sarita told a mutual acquaintance, who told a friend, who told the

FBI. This action started a chain of events that threatened to unravel the

Warren Commission investigation just before its close, almost a year

later. As documented in declassified files and in
Ultimate Sacrifice
, what

has become known among historians as the “Odio incident” can be

linked to four associates of Santo Trafficante, including two who had

learned about parts of the JFK-Almeida coup plan: John Martino, who

met with Sarita Odio around the time of the incident, and Rolando Mas-

ferrer, whose brother lived in the same Dallas apartment complex as

Silvia Odio.32

In Tampa, Santo Trafficante greeted his lawyer, Frank Ragano, at the

International Inn, the posh hotel where JFK had spoken just four days

earlier. The hotel’s fancy restaurant, usually full on a Friday night, had

less than a dozen customers besides Trafficante, Ragano, and Ragano’s

girlfriend. With so few people around, the normally cautious Trafficante

could be effusive without worrying.

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

Trafficante beamed as he told Ragano, “Isn’t that something—they

killed the son-of-a-bitch.” Ragano says that Trafficante hugged and

kissed him on the cheeks as the Tampa godfather gloated, “The son of a

bitch is dead.” According to Ragano, Trafficante’s face was “wreathed in

joy” as he boasted, “We’ll make big money out of this and maybe go back

to Cuba.” Trafficante also said he was glad for their mutual associate

Hoffa, since Bobby’s power would end under LBJ. In his autobiography,

Ragano claims he doesn’t know what Trafficante meant about return-

ing to Cuba, but it’s clear Trafficante hoped that blaming the seemingly

pro-Castro Oswald for JFK’s murder would provoke the invasion that

Trafficante’s associates, like Martino, knew had been planned. Even if

there weren’t an invasion, with JFK out of the way and Bobby no longer

controlling Cuban operations, Trafficante and his men would be free to

return to Cuba if Castro were assassinated. (CIA and FBI files would

later confirm that associates of Trafficante knew about Helms’s unau-

thorized plots to use Cubela/AMLASH to assassinate Fidel.)33

Ragano writes that he and an ebullient Trafficante raised their glasses

of scotch “as Santo said merrily, ‘For a hundred years of health and

to John Kennedy’s death.’ Santo and I both started laughing.” Those

words no doubt rang hollow in the somber, mostly empty restaurant.

Ragano’s girlfriend, a young college student, was horrified. After a few

words with Ragano, “she rushed out of the restaurant.” Ragano stayed

to continue the celebration with Trafficante.34

Trafficante had much to celebrate that night, in the hotel where JFK

had spoken so recently. His close associate Marcello had successfully

bribed his way to an acquittal, and now that JFK was dead, Bobby’s

extraordinary power was coming to an end. Also, the JFK hit hadn’t had

to occur on Trafficante’s turf. Moreover, Trafficante’s man on the Tampa

police force, Sgt. Jack de La Llana, could let him know if any word of

the Tampa assassination attempt started to leak, or if the JFK investiga-

tion started to point toward Trafficante.35 Finally, Trafficante knew Jack

Ruby, and he apparently felt confident that Ruby would be able to take

care of silencing Oswald.

Chapter Fourteen

As night fell in Washington, D.C., on November 22, 1963, Bobby Ken-

nedy was on his way to Bethesda Naval Medical Center, along with

Jackie and a caravan that included JFK’s body. During the twenty-

minute ride, Bobby heard Jackie’s account of the shooting; once they

arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital, he would also hear what JFK aides

Dave Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell had witnessed. According to his-

torian Richard Mahoney, as they passed the Capitol building, Bobby

later “recalled reflecting on his and Jack’s dramatic days together on the

McClellan Committee,” when they first began investigating organized

crime and Mafia bosses like Marcello and Trafficante.1

Entire books have been written about JFK’s autopsy, which several gov-

ernment commissions studied over the course of thirty-five years, yet

substantial controversies remain. The location and size of wounds on

some autopsy x-rays and photos don’t match what others show, or what

some at Parkland or Bethesda observed. Even worse, crucial evidence

is missing, ranging from photos and tissue samples to JFK’s brain. At

the root of these controversies is the fact that Bobby Kennedy controlled

the autopsy.

A few basic facts about the autopsy are not in dispute. All agree that

the Bethesda doctors didn’t realize that JFK had been shot in the throat,

since that wound was obscured by a tracheotomy incision. But the

Bethesda doctors did find JFK’s small back wound, which the Dallas

physicians had missed in their rush to perform the tracheotomy and

deal with JFK’s massive head injuries. The Bethesda doctors initially

assumed JFK had been shot once in the back and once in the head, and

that Connally had been hit by a separate shot. It was only the next day,

Saturday, that lead autopsy physician Dr. James Humes learned about

the throat wound. Dr. Humes later admitted that he burned his first draft

of the autopsy report on Sunday, November 24.2

Beyond those key points, much has been disputed over the years and

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remains controversial, ranging from what the autopsy doctors did or

didn’t do (and why) to what kind of casket JFK arrived in to whether

he was in a body bag. By focusing only on the most glaring issues here,

in layman’s terms when possible, we can illustrate why some of the

problems arose that night and why they persist today. (For detailed

accounts, see
In the Eye of History,
by William Matson Law, and
Best

Evidence,
by David Lifton.)

At Bethesda Naval Hospital, the man really calling the shots was Bobby

Kennedy, from the family suite on the hospital’s seventeenth floor. There,

Bobby was part of a group that included Jackie, as well as JFK aides Dave

Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell. Bobby was no doubt shocked when he

heard what Powers and O’Donnell had seen from their vantage point

in the motorcade, in the limo directly behind JFK’s. As Powers told

us, and as he and O’Donnell both confirmed to former House Speaker

Tip O’Neill, they clearly saw shots from the grassy knoll.3 Powers and

O’Donnell had known and worked with Bobby for years; the Attorney

General would have trusted their observations. In addition, Admiral

George Burkley—the only doctor at Bethesda who had also seen JFK

at Parkland—later stated that he believed JFK had been killed by more

than one gunman.4 All of this presented a dilemma for Bobby: If Oswald

had been shooting from the rear, as Hoover and the news were now

reporting, who had been shooting from the front?

Bobby’s suspicions, expressed to Haynes Johnson just hours ear-

lier, pointed to someone connected with a CIA-backed exile leader like

Artime, who was involved in the JFK-Almeida coup plan. That belief

tied into the suspicions Bobby expressed to CIA Director McCone about

the CIA. Bobby’s own subcommittee of the National Security Council

had been making Cuba Contingency Plans for two months, to deal with

the possibility that if Fidel learned about the coup plan, the Cuban leader

might retaliate by assassinating an American official. The possibility of a

shooter from Cuba, or even a double agent, couldn’t be ruled out. Also,

Oswald had spent more than two years in Russia—what if the other

shooter had been sent by the Russians?

Any of those options could have led to a crisis with Cuba or Russia

or both, especially if it were prematurely exposed. At the very least, the

coup plan with Commander Almeida would have been compromised,

resulting in the death or imprisonment of Almeida and his allies. The

plan’s exposure would have ended Bobby’s political career and any

chance he had to find out what had really happened to JFK. Bobby’s

concerns about Cuba, Russia, and Almeida would have been shared by

other officials in the know, like Joint Chiefs Chairman General Maxwell

Taylor, who had ultimate authority over a military facility like Bethesda.

One of the main points of Bobby’s subcommittee’s planning had been to

avoid a situation in which the premature release of information could

back JFK into a corner and cause a crisis that could go nuclear. Now the

thinking behind some of that planning would have to be implemented

to deal with JFK’s own death.

Some have tried to claim that shadowy generals, the CIA, or J. Edgar

Hoover ran the autopsy without Bobby’s knowledge, but much evi-

dence shows that is simply not true. Several of the people in the autopsy

made it clear that JFK’s personal physician, Admiral Burkley, wielded

a heavy hand at the autopsy on Bobby’s behalf. Francis O’Neill, one of

two FBI agents present at the autopsy, told Congressional investigators

that there was “‘no question’ that Burkley was conveying the wishes of

the Kennedy family.”5 Jerrol F. Custer, the radiology technician who took

x-rays in the autopsy room using a portable x-ray machine, stated that

Admiral Burkley said, “I am JFK’s personal physician. You will listen

to what I say. You will do what I say.”6

A laboratory technician at the autopsy, Paul O’Connor, said that

“Admiral Burkley controlled what happened in that room that night,

through Bobby Kennedy and the rest of the Kennedy family.” O’Connor

says they only “did a perfunctory examination” of JFK’s internal organs

“because Admiral Burkley kept yelling that the Kennedy family wanted

just so much done, and that’s all and nothing else.” O’Connor said that

when Burkley came into the autopsy room, he “was very agitated—

giving orders to everybody, including higher-ranking officers.”7

But at least the appearance of observing military rank had to be

maintained, and the Commandant of the Bethesda facility, Admiral

Calvin Galloway, was present in the autopsy room, so Burkley some-

times conveyed Bobby’s wishes using Galloway. James Jenkins, a navy

man from Bethesda’s clinical laboratory who helped at the autopsy, said

that the main autopsy doctor “was probably being directed by Burkley

through [Admiral] Galloway.”8 One of the assisting autopsy physicians,

Dr. J. Thorton Boswell, said that “Dr. Burkley was basically supervising

everything that went on in the autopsy room, and that the commanding

officer was also responding to Burkley’s wishes.” Dr. Burkley himself

stated in his oral history at the JFK Library that “during the autopsy I

supervised everything that was done . . . and kept in constant contact

with Mrs. Kennedy and the members of her party, who were on the

seventeenth floor.”9

Bobby was calling the shots to Dr. Burkley, and JFK military aide

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General McHugh later testified that “Bobby Kennedy frequently phoned

the autopsy suite.” According to Gus Russo, the Commander of Bethes-

da’s Naval Medical School, Captain John Stover, said that “Bobby went so