Legacy of Secrecy (51 page)

typed copy of Oswald’s notebook that was sent to Washington. FBI

agents were also very harsh in dealing with the many leads that came

in regarding Ruby’s Cuban gunrunning; some witnesses were threat-

ened with arrest or prosecution if they persisted in their stories, even

though later investigations have shown their stories were accurate. On

the other hand, in a bizarre twist, the FBI used claims from several of

Ruby’s Mafia associates as proof that Ruby had no ties to the Mafia. The

result was that the general public wouldn’t link Ruby with the Mafia

for almost a decade and a half, and Ruby’s ties to Cuban gunrunning,

which had continued into 1963, remain unknown to most of the public

even today.

Journalist Henry Hurt found that an analysis of FBI documents

provided to the Warren Commission “showed that at least 60 wit-

nesses claimed that the FBI in some way altered what the witnesses

had reported.” Journalists like Anthony Summers and Earl Golz found

other witnesses interviewed by the FBI who said the same thing. In at

least two instances, the FBI simply rewrote memos to completely change

their meaning—something an FBI agent would do only on orders from

the highest authority. We know this only because the National Archives

eventually released the original, unaltered memos.

In one case, a November 27, 1963, memo about Ruby originally cited

his link to Dallas mob boss Joe Civello. But in the version the Warren

Commission published, the final three paragraphs of the memo, which

cover Civello (and his ties to narcotics), are completely missing.20 In

another instance of FBI document tampering, the FBI was trying to make

the case that Oswald used brown paper from the Book Depository to

wrap the rifle he allegedly carried to work on the day JFK was shot. The

published version of a November 30, 1963, FBI memo says that the Book

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Depository paper was “found to have the same observable character-

istics as the brown paper bag” found on the sixth floor after the shoot-

ing. However, the National Archives eventually released the original

version of the same FBI memo, which said the Book Depository paper

was “found not to be identical with the paper gun case” found on the

sixth floor.21 The bottom line is that Hoover was using national-security

concerns to build a case against Oswald, avoid Ruby’s Mafia ties, and

hide anything that might embarrass him or the FBI.

Once Ruby surfaced in the assassination saga on November 24, Hoover

had new worries. Hoover probably had reports on Ruby’s links to

associates like Trafficante and Hoffa that he withheld from the Warren

Commission. The FBI definitely had reports of Ruby’s fall 1963 visits

to Johnny Rosselli, who was under FBI surveillance at the time, which

were likewise withheld. If Hoover had FBI files searched for informa-

tion about threats to JFK, he would have found that FBI informant Jose

Aleman had reported Trafficante’s fall 1962 threat that JFK would be

“hit” before the next election. Recently released files make it clear that

Aleman continued to be an FBI informant in late 1963 and into 1964, as

part of the FBI’s “Top Echelon Criminal Informant Program.” Aleman

had met with his FBI handlers in the weeks prior to JFK’s murder, as

confirmed by an October 23, 1963, memo to Hoover in which Aleman

“admitted [his] association with and business dealings with . . . Santo

Trafficante. . . . Aleman was cooperative throughout this interview and

has agreed to furnish information on a confidential basis relating to

the activities of [Santo] Trafficante.”22 In 1964, Aleman would continue

to provide information to the FBI about not only Trafficante, but also

Trafficante’s bodyguard, Herminio Diaz.23 Faced with either revealing

Aleman’s report of Trafficante’s threat to hit JFK (a threat not conveyed

to the Secret Service) or continuing to use Aleman as an informant,

Hoover chose the latter.

Hoover had at least one other important JFK threat in his files, the one

involving Carlos Marcello that Ed Becker reported to the FBI in the fall of

1962. As Hoover received information on November 23 and 24 about the

allegations concerning David Ferrie and Guy Banister, the connection

to Marcello would have been inescapable. Yet this threat would also not

be revealed to the Warren Commission, apparently for the same reason

Hoover’s New Orleans FBI kept its distance from Marcello.

Hoover maintained his own set of “official and confidential files” of

the most sensitive and scandalous information, and one has to wonder

if all the sensitive files about Oswald, Ruby, Trafficante, Rosselli, and

Marcello wound up there. Reportedly, all of the “official and confidential

files” were destroyed by Hoover’s longtime companion and right-hand

man, Clyde Tolson, shortly after Hoover’s death.24

Richard Helms at the CIA had even more reason than Hoover to be

concerned about Jack Ruby, and to start covering up. Ruby’s 1959 gun-

running and trips to Cuba had placed him on the fringe of the original

1959 CIA-Mafia plot to kill Fidel Castro. Even the Colt Cobra pistol that

Ruby used to shoot Oswald came from his activities during that era. The

CIA-Mafia plot that began in 1959 had been brokered by Jimmy Hoffa,

while then–Vice President Richard Nixon was running Cuba policy for

Eisenhower. The 1959 plots preceded the more extensive and direct CIA-

Mafia plots with Trafficante and Rosselli that began in the summer of

1960, in an attempt to assassinate Castro before the November 1960

presidential election. Helms had not been involved in the creation of

either of those plots, which high-ranking CIA officials had authorized.

But because Helms had continued the CIA-Mafia plots with Rosselli on

an unauthorized basis, after telling Bobby Kennedy they had ended,

Helms had to keep all of them secret, especially any of their ties to Jack

Ruby.

The CIA, or the FBI, was probably behind the disappearance of files

about Ruby from other government agencies. Author David Scheim

said that “in 1958, Ruby wrote a letter to the State Department’s Office

of Munitions Controls ‘requesting permission to negotiate the purchase

of firearms and ammunition from an Italian firm’ and the name ‘Jack

Rubenstein’ was listed in a 1959 Army Intelligence report on US arms

dealers. Although located by clerks of these two federal agencies in 1963,

both documents are today inexplicably missing.”25

While Helms was busy covering up CIA ties to Ruby and Oswald, he

was simultaneously overseeing several CIA investigations. In addition

to the Mexico City activities we cited earlier, the huge Miami CIA station

(JMWAVE) reported that “following [the] assassination [of] President

Kennedy, JMWAVE ran traces on all suspects or participants with nega-

tive results.”26 One can’t help but notice the use of the plural “suspects”

and “participants” for an assassination officially attributed to just one

man. Then again, given the fact that confessed JFK assassination par-

ticipant David Morales was the Chief of Operations for the Miami CIA

station, it’s not surprising that their search turned up only “negative

results.”

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We mentioned earlier the internal CIA investigation that Helms

originally assigned to John Whitten, until he complained that files had

been withheld from him. Whitten was then replaced by CIA Counter-

Intelligence Chief James Angleton, but there was apparently at least

one more CIA investigation, which was conducted for LBJ. According

to Congressional investigators, about a month after JFK’s murder “the

CIA report of [its] investigation [was] submitted to President Johnson,”

but they noted that there was “no indication that the Warren Commis-

sion received this document.” (It’s unclear whether this was the same

report that Whitten started and Angleton finished.)27

Helms might have ordered at least one additional investigation or

informal inquiry, but someone very close to him would have had to com-

plete it. No thorough investigation of JFK’s assassination, or of the role

of CIA assets in it, could be conducted without the investigators’ being

told about at least some of Helms’s unauthorized Castro assassination

operations. While most of the Cuban exile leaders Bobby and Harry

chose for the JFK-Almeida coup plan continued to receive CIA support

during 1964, Tony Varona was unceremoniously dumped, for reasons

not clear in his declassified CIA file. Varona, who had taken $200,000

from Rosselli’s Chicago Mafia and then dealt with Trafficante associate

Rolando Masferrer, was cut off by the CIA. Congressional investigators

found that Varona left Miami in early 1964 and moved to New York,

giving up his full-time work for the exile cause. Just months after that, a

CIA memo cited a
New York Times
article about Varona that said he was

earning money by selling cars in New Jersey at night.28

Legally, if Helms felt that Varona and any other CIA asset were

involved in JFK’s assassination, he didn’t have to tell anyone. Author

Peter Dale Scott found that an “agreement was in force from the mid-

1950s to the mid-1970s, exempting the CIA from a statutory requirement

to report [to the Justice Department] any criminal activity by any of

its employees or assets.” Declassified files indicate at least two other

cases—one of which was QJWIN’s termination—in which Helms may

have sacked an agent because of links to JFK’s assassination.

It’s important to keep in mind that just as Hoover had to investi-

gate JFK’s assassination and conceal certain information while still

running the FBI’s usual operations, the same was true for Helms. The

CIA’s Cuban operations, both authorized and unauthorized, contin-

ued, even as Helms oversaw the CIA’s own investigations and withheld

important information from the FBI and the soon-to-be-created Warren

Commission.

After Oswald’s death, Naval Intelligence’s goals changed radically. On

the afternoon of November 24, the organization transitioned from shred-

ding files about its “tight surveillance” of Oswald to conducting its own,

secret internal investigation of JFK’s assassination. Also involved were

personnel from Marine Intelligence, and the operation was probably

known to the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Joseph

Carroll. Our Naval Intelligence source participated in this secret inves-

tigation, aspects of which were later independently confirmed by the

House Select Committee on Assassinations and by a former Navy man

who was the son of a prominent admiral.

Our source “became part of a 6-week Naval Intelligence investigation

into JFK’s assassination.” He said “their mission was ‘Did [Oswald] do

it?’ not ‘Who did it?’” As part of their investigation, Naval Intelligence

personnel went to Dallas, but “they were forbidden to have anything

to do with the autopsy.” He said, “The result of the Naval Intelligence

investigation was that [it] concluded Oswald was not the shooter, due

to his skills, the gun, etc., [and that] Oswald was incapable of master-

minding the assassination or of doing the actual shooting.” The report’s

summary was “6–7 pages, with hundreds of supporting documents.”

Our source had “some knowledge that the CIA also conducted [its] own

investigation,” a fact that wasn’t widely known when we talked to the

source in 1991.

It’s significant that Naval Intelligence had the same men involved

with Oswald’s “tight surveillance” conduct this secret investigation. On

one hand, it kept Navy brass from having to let more Naval personnel

know about the extensive surveillance Oswald had been under. On the

other hand, the men were essentially investigating their own organiza-

tion and their own work, and were hardly in a position to be objective if

leads pointed to problems with some of those who had been providing

information about Oswald (such as Guy Banister).

Our source “signed a disclosure agreement” after the investigation,

and even after almost thirty years he would convey information to us

only through a trusted intermediary.29 The House Select Committee

on Assassinations uncovered evidence of what appears to be a related

Marine Intelligence investigation that reached similar conclusions.

However, the US military stonewalled the Committee about critical

information until the Committee’s mandate expired. When we inter-

viewed the US Navy Admiral’s son, he independently claimed to have

seen a copy of the Naval Intelligence report while he was stationed at

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a large US Navy base in the Pacific in the early 1970s. His account of

the report’s conclusions matched very closely those of our Naval Intel-

ligence source.30

The Naval Intelligence investigation and its conclusions make sense

in light of both the tight surveillance Oswald was under before JFK’s