Legacy of Secrecy (87 page)

on social occasions,” but Marcello’s reputation was such that Garrison

seemed privately torn over taking on the Mafia boss. The same week that

Garrison talked about indicting Marcello, Garrison did arraign former

low-level Marcello attorney Dean Andrews on perjury charges. How-

ever, on the same day, Garrison was successful in having the grand jury

indict Clay Shaw for conspiring to murder JFK, taking his investigation

permanently off course.22

While Garrison focused futilely on Clay Shaw, Shaw’s former co-

worker Alberto Fowler had a hand in torpedoing crucial parts of Gar-

rison’s investigation. Richard Billings’s notes say that in early March

1967, Fowler claimed he was unable to convince Silvia Odio, or her

sister Annie Odio, to cooperate with Garrison. Many years later, one of

Fowler’s associates would be identified as one of the two men who had

visited Odio with Lee Oswald. Similarly, only after one of Fowler’s men

had located and interviewed Eladio del Valle, and after del Valle was

brutally murdered, did Garrison learn that del Valle was “tied up with

Santo Trafficante.” Garrison quit using Fowler’s associate at that point,

but by that time Garrison had lost his only link between Trafficante and

JFK’s murder—and Trafficante’s name would not be associated publicly

with JFK’s assassination until eight years later.23

Johnny Rosselli asked Ed Morgan to talk to Drew Pearson in mid-March,

after Pearson had returned from South America. Morgan told Pearson

he had seen Rosselli in Las Vegas, and that Rosselli had been “most

indignant” about the stories Jack Anderson had written. Pearson wrote

in his diary that Morgan told him Rosselli “will not cooperate in advanc-

ing the story any further.” By that time, Rosselli had relayed two stories

that Anderson had published and was content to let the situation play

out quietly in Washington’s corridors of power. Hoffa had already gone

to prison, and while Rosselli had no official deal to avoid prosecution,

the FBI was no longer actively pressuring him about the immigration

matter. Rosselli’s feigned outrage—that a journalist had actually run a

story he’d been given—seems designed to make Pearson feel he wasn’t

being used, when he really was. (Rosselli would later leak more infor-

mation to Anderson, further proof that Rosselli liked what Anderson

had done.)24

Pearson also wrote in his diary that he originally thought Anderson’s

columns were “a poor story . . . and violated a confidence. . . . Finally,

it reflected on Bobby Kennedy without actually pinning the goods on

him.” Author Max Holland points out that Pearson thought “the
Wash-

ington Post
and
New York Post
were right not to run the [first] column.”25

But Rosselli’s fake indignation, coupled with others’ reactions to the

story, apparently made Pearson believe it was worth pursuing.

On March 13, 1967, Drew Pearson and Earl Warren met with LBJ at

the White House. Before meeting with Pearson, LBJ met privately for

forty minutes with only Earl Warren and LBJ’s liaison to the FBI. A few

days later, Pearson agreed to fund an almost two-week investigative trip

to New Orleans, for Jack Anderson to meet with Jim Garrison. Clearly,

Pearson wasn’t upset with Anderson for running the Rosselli story and

wanted to pursue it further. Now that Rosselli was no longer talking,

Garrison seemed like the next best source.26

Four days after meeting with Pearson and Warren, LBJ had one of his

aides tell FBI official Clyde Tolson that the FBI should “try to interview”

Rosselli’s attorney, Ed Morgan. Tolson protested, but LBJ insisted, so

the FBI complied.27

430

LEGACY OF SECRECY

The FBI’s interview with Ed Morgan on March 21, 1967, provides an

almost unfiltered version of Rosselli’s tale, and is as close as we can get

to hearing it from Rosselli himself. Some of its points were not in Jack

Anderson’s articles, but were heard by officials like President Johnson

and had an impact on their later beliefs and actions. Rosselli’s tale is the

masterful spin job one would expect from a longtime force in Las Vegas

and Hollywood, combining facts with fantasy designed to appeal to

the intended audience (in this case, J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ, and worried

CIA officials like Helms). Morgan made a convincing mouthpiece for

the tale because he and Anderson probably believed Rosselli. Mounting

confirmation that the CIA really had plotted with the Mafia would also

suggest to officials that Rosselli might be right about Castro’s having

killed JFK.

It’s clear from reading Morgan’s story, as taken down by the FBI

agents, that one of Rosselli’s goals was to conflate the CIA-Mafia plots

with the JFK-Almeida coup plan. That conflation can be seen in Ander-

son’s columns, especially the second one, which cited 1963 as the date

of the plot to kill Castro, and ascribed control of it to Bobby Kennedy.

One sign that Rosselli succeeded in achieving this goal is the fact that

Morgan’s FBI interview, and memos about LBJ’s reaction to Rosselli’s

story, are in a massive, 318-page FBI file at the National Archives that

contains much of the FBI’s information about Commander Almeida.28

Soon after Morgan’s FBI interview began, he said his goal in talking

to the agents was to get “complete immunity” for his clients from “some

competent authority.” Morgan claimed that such immunity was needed

to keep some DA like “Garrison of New Orleans” from prosecuting his

clients for trying to kill Fidel, a very unlikely scenario. Morgan’s real

goal was to try to prevent the FBI from using the immigration charges

against Rosselli.29

To help hide the fact that the whole story was a ruse to acquire immu-

nity for Rosselli, Morgan stressed to the FBI that he “was employed by

more than one of those involved.” That statement was technically true,

since Morgan had earlier represented Robert Maheu and Jimmy Hoffa,

in addition to Rosselli. However, in pushing the story to the FBI, Morgan

was acting primarily on Rosselli’s behalf.30

Morgan tried to convince the FBI that his clients’ actions were noble

by claiming that they were “substantial citizens, people who loved their

country and had a high regard for the then President [Kennedy].” He

stressed their “high ethical standard,” and the fact that they had been

“patriotically motivated” in helping the US against Castro, and were

coming forward now only because their “conscience bothered” them.

This was the same phony image Rosselli would later present when tes-

tifying to Congress.

In a revealing passage, Morgan got close to the truth when he said,

“One client, when hearing the statement that Lee Harvey Oswald was

the sole assassin of President Kennedy, ‘laughs with tears in his eyes

and shakes his head in apparent disagreement.’” Johnny Rosselli may

well have laughed at JFK’s murder, but not for the reasons Morgan

thought.31

To conflate the CIA-Mafia plots with the real coup plan from 1963,

and to explain how his clients could have found out that Castro had

retaliated against JFK, Morgan told the FBI his clients had been

. . . called upon by a Governmental agency to assist in a project which

was said to have the highest Governmental approval. The project

had as its purpose the assassination of Fidel Castro. . . . Elaborate

plans involving many people were made. These plans included the

infiltration of the Cuban government and the placing of informants

in key posts within Cuba.32

Rosselli knew that having Morgan mention the “infiltration of the

Cuban government” would set off alarm bells with the high US officials

who knew about Almeida. In addition, the “informants . . . within Cuba”

could explain how Morgan’s clients learned about Fidel’s retaliatory hit

teams. The rest of Morgan’s story was a clearer version of the account

related in Anderson’s columns.

The well-connected Morgan was aware of Hoover’s insatiable thirst

for inside information, so he suggested the possibility that the FBI could

learn much more if it would give his clients “complete immunity.” Mor-

gan also slammed the CIA, saying that “it was inconceivable to him that

an agency of the Government . . . has not [made] this most important

data available to the Warren Commission.”33

Morgan conveyed the information Rosselli wanted him to, while

refusing to give up the mobster’s name to the FBI. The FBI wasted no

time in getting a summary of Morgan’s interview to President Johnson

and Attorney General Clark, setting off a chain of events that would

echo into the next decade and beyond—and trigger yet another round

of cover-ups by Richard Helms.

Chapter Thirty-five

President Lyndon Johnson received the results of the FBI’s interview

with Rosselli’s attorney, Ed Morgan, on March 22, 1967. That evening,

LBJ demanded a full explanation from CIA Director Richard Helms, but

he didn’t get one; instead, Helms gave an incomplete, often misleading

account to the president who had appointed him.

Helms did with LBJ what he had done with other high-ranking offi-

cials, only more carefully and on a larger scale. Declassified files and

Congressional testimony show that Helms had withheld information

from, and lied to, a succession of officials about his unauthorized Castro

assassination plots: President Kennedy, Attorney General Bobby Ken-

nedy, then–CIA Director John McCone, the Warren Commission, and

Secretary of State Dean Rusk. LBJ would fare no better, though Helms

went to greater lengths to cover himself this time, withholding informa-

tion from CIA investigators and even having internal CIA memos and

testimony destroyed.

The limited, incomplete story Helms would allow the CIA’s Inspec-

tor General to generate about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro would

become the object of presidential fascination and Congressional inves-

tigations, and large parts of it would remain beyond the public’s reach

for decades. Only in the 1990s would the almost uncensored report

finally become available, and only later would files be declassified

that showed just how much crucial information Helms had withheld

from LBJ.1

That President Johnson asked Helms for the report is ironic, because

LBJ was suspicious of the CIA—and not just for withholding information

about the plots to kill Castro. According to a memo from a high-ranking

FBI official, based on talks with top LBJ aide Marvin Watson, Presi-

dent Johnson “was now convinced that there was a plot in connection

with the assassination [of JFK]. Watson stated the President felt that [the]

CIA had had something to do with this plot.” Perhaps Helms sensed

LBJ’s suspicion, or was told about it, resulting in Helms’s decision to

withhold crucial information.2

LBJ’s worry that the “CIA had something to do with” JFK’s assassina-

tion did not last long, and would apparently be dispelled by the incom-

plete report Helms made sure was generated. But President Johnson still

harbored those doubts on the evening of March 22, when he met with

Richard Helms at the White House. It was not the type of folksy chat LBJ

sometimes utilized to get what he wanted. According to Helms’s biogra-

pher, Thomas Powers, President Johnson did not ask for the report “idly

or in passing.” Instead, LBJ “asked directly, formally, and explicitly, in a

tone and manner which did not [foresee] evasion,” making it clear that

he expected “an honest answer.” 3 For good measure, LBJ also wanted

Helms to address any CIA involvement in the assassinations of Vietnam

leader Diem, in 1963, and Dominican dictator Trujillo, in 1961.

LBJ’s formal request was one of two overriding factors that dictated

the form of Helms’s resulting report. First, LBJ’s request would have

to be referred to the CIA’s Inspector General, Jack Earman, who had

given Helms such a hard time in the summer of 1963 about the CIA’s

MKULTRA mind-control program. Second, how much LBJ told Helms

about the information he had received from the FBI about the CIA-Mafia

plots is not clear. While the CIA appears to have received copies of the

FBI memos that went to LBJ and the attorney general, Helms didn’t

know what additional information J. Edgar Hoover might have shared

privately with his friend LBJ. Helms was aware of earlier memos the

CIA had provided to the FBI about the plots, after the FBI discovered

parts of the plots in 1961 and 1962.

Richard Helms’s report would have to account for everything he knew

the FBI had, plus any additional information it might have uncovered

without telling the CIA. At the same time, Helms would have to avoid

detailing the most sensitive parts of his unauthorized Castro assassina-

tion plots. He would also have to make sure the report didn’t reveal

how Rosselli and other Mafia bosses had infiltrated and compromised