Legacy of Secrecy (74 page)

Johnson with Harry Williams and Manuel Artime, with the support of

Bobby Kennedy. At a time when so much information about the CIA’s

role in the Bay of Pigs was still secret, it’s hard to believe that Hunt

would have devoted the time and energy needed to write such a book

unless he had at least informal approval from his patron, Helms. Though

Hunt’s book about the fiasco would not be published until 1973, Hunt’s

CIA file says that he had submitted it to a publisher by mid-1968.22 That

raises the possibility that Hunt had completed the book so that it, or an

advance excerpt, could have been used against Bobby Kennedy, if he

ran for president in 1968 and tried to blame the CIA for the Bay of Pigs

fiasco.

Hunt’s other writing project in 1966 was a series of fiction books

designed to cast the CIA in a good light. Neither the tawdry glitz of

James Bond nor the bleaker depictions of the CIA in books and movies

like
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
were especially favorable to the

CIA, so Richard Helms championed Hunt’s idea for a series of CIA-

approved spy novels. Helms kept copies of the paperbacks in his drawer

to give to visitors, and nine novels appeared from 1965 to 1972, under

the pseudonym David St. John, the name of Hunt’s infant son.23

Chapter Twenty-eight

Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante dealt with the rising interest in

JFK’s assassination and the new conspiracy books by adapting the strat-

egy they were developing to keep Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Rosselli out

of prison. Marcello and Trafficante’s frequent meetings in the fall of 1966

and early 1967 allowed them to quickly respond to, and take advantage

of, new developments. Beginning on September 21, 1966, a series of

three meetings over three days in New York City showed Marcello,

Trafficante, and the Mafia at the height of their post-JFK arrogance and

power, though it ultimately sent the mob bosses (very briefly) to jail. The

first conclave, revealed by Marcello to an FBI informant, has not been

previously reported. Marcello said “the really serious meeting” occurred

on the evening of September 21, and “that the New York Police would

have ‘seen some real power’ if they had [known about it].”1

While Marcello identified that as the most important meeting, the

one the following day at New York City’s La Stella restaurant was very

impressive. At the main table with Marcello and Trafficante were New

York mob bosses Carlo Gambino, Joey Gallo, and Joseph Colombo, as

well as eight more mob heavyweights from New York and Louisiana.

Such an assemblage didn’t pass unnoticed in Manhattan police circles,

and the mob bosses were all arrested for consorting with mobsters (one

another). After a humiliating strip search and several hours in jail, each

was released on $100,000 bail and the charges were later dropped.2

On September 23, as if to show they were not intimidated, Marcello,

Trafficante, Frank Ragano, Jack Wasserman (Marcello’s lawyer), and

three others returned to the same restaurant for lunch. Police showed

up again, without arrest warrants but with a
New York Daily News
pho-

tographer. Just as Trafficante and Ragano had done on the night JFK was

assassinated, the two raised their glasses in a toast—only this time, a

photographer caught the moment on film.3

Marcello’s arrogance was punctured on October 1, 1966, when he

returned to New Orleans. The local FBI office was slowly overcoming

its lax attitude about Marcello that had prevailed for years, and at the

airport, an FBI agent confronted the godfather. Accounts vary as to the

reasons for what happened next, but the physical act was well docu-

mented, by witnesses and a photographer: Marcello took a swing at the

FBI agent and hit him. The resulting arrest and charges would dog Mar-

cello for years, eventually sending him to a short stay federal prison.4

Journalists and historians have long debated the reason for Marcello’s

trip to New York for the highly unusual Mafia meetings. Those reasons

range from the son of Marcello’s predecessor demanding a bigger cut

to squabbling between the New York Mafia families. Those or other

concerns could have been factors, but because of what happened next,

it’s also likely that Jimmy Hoffa was on the agenda.

Soon after the meetings, a group of Mafia leaders reportedly autho-

rized Marcello to spend up to $2 million to prevent Jimmy Hoffa from

going to prison. Various leaders had contributed, and they decided that

if anyone could keep Hoffa out of jail, it was Marcello.5 This effort would

guide much of what happened in New Orleans in the coming months,

as a plan was put into place to keep Hoffa out of prison or to get him

released once he was there.

Marcello’s “spring Hoffa” plan, which he probably worked out with

Trafficante at their long private meetings, was also part of their strat-

egy to keep Johnny Rosselli from being deported. That would help to

preserve the secret all four men shared: their roles in JFK’s murder. The

spate of books and articles criticizing the Warren Commission had not

yet focused on the Mafia at all, or mentioned them by name, but that

could happen at any time—unless the godfathers took some type of

action to prevent it. They made sure their strategy to help Hoffa and

Rosselli would also divert attention away from their role in JFK’s mur-

der and ensure that high US officials would have to keep covering up

important information.

Trafficante kept up with national affairs and would have noticed

the newspaper and TV polls that pitted Bobby Kennedy against LBJ

in a hypothetical battle for the 1968 nomination, even though Bobby

had made no public remarks suggesting he might run. Throughout the

summer and fall, Bobby consistently beat LBJ in the polls. The worst

nightmare for Trafficante and Marcello would be Bobby Kennedy as

president, with the resources to conduct a thorough, secret investigation

of his brother’s murder. As president, Bobby Kennedy could declare

martial law or (martial rule, as in Phenix City) and send the National

Guard into their compounds and domains. If the Mafia dons’ strategy

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to help Hoffa and Rosselli also damaged Bobby’s presidential chances,

all the better.

On October 5, 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals ordered a new trial

for Jack Ruby, further complicating the situation for Marcello and Traf-

ficante. The court was also considering a change in venue, meaning that

Ruby would no longer be in a cell that reportedly overlooked Dealey

Plaza (a reminder of what happened to those who crossed Marcello)

and under the control of Sheriff Decker, an associate of Marcello’s Dal-

las crime boss. On October 12, Trafficante went to Las Vegas, probably

to meet with Johnny Rosselli about the events due to unfold. Soon after

that, their plan began to be put into action. It’s best to think of it as an

evolving strategy, which changed to address new developments that

would rapidly unfold in the coming weeks and months.6

Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli apparently came up with a three-

pronged strategy that attempted to keep Rosselli and Hoffa out of jail,

while neutralizing any current or future threat from Bobby Kennedy.

Their plan’s main goal was to avoid exposure of their roles in JFK’s

murder, whatever the cost: In the coming months and years, it became

clear that they were willing to kill even high-profile targets, like govern-

ment witnesses, in order to achieve their goals. Ultimately, like a pack

of desperate jackals, they would even turn on one another.

It’s important to keep in mind that Rosselli’s Mafia position was lower

than Marcello’s or Trafficante’s. While they were essentially godfathers

of their respective territories, Rosselli was only a Mafia don whose main

patron (Giancana) had left the country. So, while all three wanted to

avoid suspicion, protecting Marcello and Trafficante would always take

precedence.

The mob bosses’ plan would box in Bobby Kennedy even further,

limiting his ability to call publicly for any type of new investigation—

and hopefully hurting his chances to run for the presidency in 1968.

We mentioned earlier Senator Edward Long’s hearings on electronic

surveillance, designed to help Hoffa while hurting Bobby’s reputation.

Rosselli was laying the groundwork to strike even harder at an area

sensitive to Bobby, one that would keep Bobby from leaking damaging

information about the Mafia to reporters, since it would only support

the distorted story Rosselli was about to spread.

To avoid immigration charges, Rosselli was pressuring the CIA to

intervene on his behalf, depicting himself as a patriotic citizen who had

helped the CIA and now needed its help. That ploy wasn’t working with

Helms, so the three mob bosses developed a story to float to a few high

US officials and to America’s most powerful journalist. It was designed

to alarm them, as well as the CIA and Bobby Kennedy, and would be

especially effective for those who knew about the CIA-Mafia plots and/

or the JFK-Almeida coup plan.

The basic story Rosselli would leak in late 1966, and on a much

larger scale early the following year, was that Bobby Kennedy had been

responsible for a 1963 attempt to kill Fidel Castro that had somehow

boomeranged, killing his own brother. It was a more detailed version of

the “Castro killed JFK” story that Rosselli and Trafficante associates like

John Martino had been pushing mere days after JFK’s murder. This story

would hit Bobby Kennedy on several levels: It would associate his name

with an assassination attempt in an era when that was unthinkable for

most Americans; make Bobby responsible for his own brother’s death;

and threaten to expose Commander Almeida, still one of the highest-

ranking officials in the Cuban government.

Helms and the CIA would be hit hard by the story, since Rosselli

added some details from a real incident: the March 13, 1963, attempt to

assassinate Fidel near the University of Havana, using mortars, bazoo-

kas, and machine guns. It had been one of two attempts to assassinate

Fidel within a three-week period (the other was April 7, 1963), in which

several of the participants had been captured. JFK’s personal emissary,

James Donovan, had been in Cuba around that time, trying to negotiate

the release of twenty-one prisoners, including three CIA agents. These

Castro assassination attempts had been totally unauthorized by, and

unknown to, the Kennedys and CIA Director John McCone. Those plots

wouldn’t become public until several years later, after a Cuban govern-

ment report detailing the attempts—and earlier ones under Vice Presi-

dent Richard Nixon—would help to trigger the Watergate break-ins.7

To tie the failed 1963 Castro assassination attempt to JFK’s murder,

Rosselli added a twist from a best-selling book and popular movie,
The

Manchurian Candidate
, produced by Rosselli’s friend Frank Sinatra. As

Rosselli would tell the story, some of the captured Cuban exiles had

been tortured and “turned” by their captors, then sent back to America

to kill JFK.

In hindsight, it may sound like the wild tale it was. But the fact that

it was couched in terms of a real operation that only a few high officials

knew about gave it some credibility. Though skeptical at first, when the

officials and journalists hearing the story found out that the CIA really

had been conspiring with the Mafia, they thought the rest of the story

might be true as well.

As with any good “con,” the story the longtime gambling kingpins

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concocted played on the desires and fears of its targets. For LBJ, the

tale offered dirt to use against Bobby Kennedy. For Bobby, it seemed to

confirm his worst fear. For Cold Warriors like Hoover, it confirmed that

communist Fidel had killed JFK.

The tale worked best when revealed cautiously, and only under care-

fully controlled circumstances, so the person hearing it couldn’t ask

Rosselli questions. Years later, when Rosselli testified under oath to

Congressional investigators, he would downplay or deny the “turned-

around assassins” story. Even so, the phony story would outlive Ros-

selli and both godfathers, continuing to resurface as fact in books and

documentaries into the twenty-first century.

The false story’s brilliance was not just its partial basis in reality,

but also in the fact that if officials or the public ever saw evidence that

linked Rosselli to those involved in JFK’s murder, it would seem as if

the Mafia don was just an innocent patriot, one whose associates had

been “turned” and used by Fidel. Since Trafficante and Marcello had

also worked on the CIA-Mafia plots, the same would be true if evidence

tied them to those who had murdered JFK. The ultimate irony is that