The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination (31 page)

In the summer of 1963, Lee Oswald got a significant amount of TV, radio, and newspaper publicity for his phony, one-man chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in new Orleans. Here, he passes out pro-Castro leaflets.

Some of Oswald’s leaflets were stamped with the address “544 Camp street,” which was the building where the staunchly anti-Communist Banister had his office.

Three weeks before Dallas, JFK had to cancel his Chicago trip and motorcade because of an assassination plot involving four men. An ex-Marine, not Oswald, who worked at a warehouse overlooking JFK’s motorcade route was arrested. JFK kept word of the threat out of the press at the time, for national security reasons. Before Abraham Bolden, the first black presidential secret service agent, could tell warren Commission staff about the Chicago plot, he was arrested and sent to prison on false charges.

Helping Marcello and Trafficante implement their plan to kill JFK was Johnny Rosselli, the Mafia don who represented Sam Giancana and the Chicago mob in Las Vegas and Hollywood. shortly before he was murdered on Trafficante’s orders, Rosselli confessed his role in JFK’s assassination to his attorney.

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On November 18, 1963, four days before Dallas, JFK was almost assassinated during his long motorcade through Tampa, Florida. This plot was kept hidden from the press at the time by JFK, and this small article only slipped out the day after he died. The warren Commission—and the five government committees that later investigated parts of the JFK assassination—were never told about it. Tampa’s police chief told me they were most worried JFK would be shot from the Floridan Hotel, which looks like a larger version of the Texas school Book Depository.

Tampa godfather Santo Trafficante (left), and his attorney Frank Ragano (right)—seen here in 1966—toasted JFK’s murder the night he died, at the same Tampa hotel where JFK had spoken just four days earlier.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ARCHIVE

Three months before JFK was elected President, vice President Richard Nixon had ordered the CIA to work with Trafficante, Rosselli, and other mobsters to assassinate Fidel Castro. Carlos Marcello also joined those CIA-Mafia plots, which CIA official Richard Helms continued into 1963 without telling JFK or even CIA Director McCone.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Robert Kennedy, seen here with the released leaders of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and JFK had their own plan to topple Fidel Castro, if they couldn’t reach a negotiated settlement with him. Robert Kennedy’s top Cuban exile aide was Enrique “Harry” Ruiz-Williams (right), and they were assisted by exile Manuel Artime (far left).

AP IMAGES

The Kennedys had banned the Mafia from their coup plan, or from reopening their casinos after the coup. Unknown to JFK, Robert Kennedy, or Ruiz-Williams, the CIA was using exile leader Manuel Artime in the CIA-Mafia plots with Trafficante and Rosselli in 1963. This fact was also hidden from the warren Commission and the House select Committee on Assassinations.

In contrast to the CIA, the Kennedys’ plan in 1963 involved working with Commander Juan Almeida (right), the head and founder of the Cuban Army, and the third most powerful man in Cuba, to stage a “palace coup” against Fidel that would lead to free elections.