JFK, Oswald, Cuba, and the Mafia

The mob was Ruby's "friend. It would not have been hard for the mob to maneuver Ruby through the ranks of a few negotiable police [to kill Oswald]. Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.

According to Lieutenant Billy Grammer, a DPD dispatcher, at 3am on November 24, he received an anonymous phone call from a man who knew Grammer's name. The caller told Grammer that he knew of the plan to move Oswald from the basement and that unless the plans for Oswald's transfer were changed, the caller warned "we are going to kill him".

After Oswald was shot, Grammer, who knew Ruby, and found the voice familiar at the time of the call, identified Ruby as the caller. Grammer remained convinced that Ruby's shooting of Oswald was "a planned event". Detective Archer testified to the Warren Commission that when he searched Jack Ruby after his arrest, he was worried about Oswald's condition and he said to Ruby, "Jack, I think you killed him. Ruby's explanation for killing Oswald would be "exposed In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify.

Robert Blakey , chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from to , said: Additionally, in his book, Contract on America , David Scheim, presented evidence, that although some people claimed that they saw Ruby upset over the weekend of the assassination, others said that he wasn't. He seemed happy, jovial, was joking and laughing". Scheim also presented evidence which he claimed was Ruby making several "candid confession s " whilst giving testimony to the Warren Commission.

Ruby added, "it's strange that perhaps I didn't vote for President Kennedy, or didn't vote at all, that I should build up such a great affection for him". Schiem also noted several people who knew Ruby, who claimed that the patriotic statements Ruby professed were quite out of character. Harry Hall, Ruby's partner in a gambling operation, told the FBI that "Ruby was the type who was interested in any way to make money" and also said that he "could not conceive of Ruby doing anything out of patriotism. He felt Ruby would have done it for money. Ruby's lawyers argued that he could not have received a fair trial in Dallas because of the excessive publicity surrounding the case.

A year after his conviction, in March , Ruby conducted a brief televised news conference in which he stated: The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motives. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world. Dallas Deputy Sheriff Al Maddox claimed: That's what he told me, Ruby did. I said you don't believe that bullshit.

He said, 'I damn sure do! And that was the last letter I ever got from him. I do not want to die. But I am not insane. I was framed to kill Oswald. Scheim cited in particular a fold increase in the number of out-of-state telephone calls from Jack Ruby to associates of these crime bosses in the months before the assassination. In the light of the identity of some of the individuals with whom Ruby spoke, however, the possibility of other matters being discussed could not be dismissed. In , fifteen years after the Warren report, the House Select Committee on Assassinations undertook a similar investigation of Ruby and said that he "had a significant number of associations and direct and indirect contacts with underworld figures" and "the Dallas criminal element" but that he was not a "member" of organized crime.

Ruby was known to have been acquainted with both the police and the Mafia. While Campisi's technical characterization in federal law enforcement records as an organized crime member has ranged from definite to suspected to negative, it is clear that he was an associate or friend of many Dallas-based organized crime members, particularly Joseph Civello , during the time he was the head of the Dallas organization.

There was no indication that Campisi had engaged in any specific organized crime-related activities. Similarly, a PBS Frontline investigation into the connections between Ruby and Dallas organized crime figures reported the following:. In , Sam and Joe Campisi were leading figures in the Dallas underworld.

JFK Files: Cuban Intelligence Was in Contact With Oswald, Praised His Shooting Ability - HISTORY

Jack knew the Campisis and had been seen with them on many occasions. The Campisis were lieutenants of Carlos Marcello , the Mafia boss who had reportedly talked of killing the President. A day before Kennedy was assassinated, Ruby went to Joe Campisi's restaurant. Willens — the third highest official in the Department of Justice [95] and assistant counsel to J. Lee Rankin — helped organize the Warren Commission. Willens also outlined the Commission's investigative priorities [96] and terminated an investigation of Ruby's Cuban related activities.

Ruby considered McWillie, who had previously run illegal gambling establishments in Texas, to be one of his closest friends. Ruby met with [Mafia boss] Santo Trafficante in Cuba sometime in Beaird said that Ruby "was in it for the money. It wouldn't matter which side, just [whichever] one that would pay him the most. He claimed that "each time that the boat left with guns and ammunition, Jack Ruby was on the boat.

Articles of clothing that Ruby wore when he killed Oswald — including his suit, hat and shoes — are on display at the Historic Auto Attractions museum in Roscoe, Illinois. A Biography of Jack Ruby". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the Jamaican record producer, see Jack Ruby record producer. Chicago , Illinois, U. Assassination of John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. The New York Times. The Saturday Evening Post Retrieved December 3, Not in Your Lifetime , New York: Canute Michaelson to work with Dr.

Alton Ochsner and Dr. Mary Sherman on a clandestine CIA project to develop a biological weapon that could be used to assassinate Fidel Castro. According to Baker, she and Oswald were hired by Reily in the spring of as a "cover" for the operation. Addressing speculation that Oswald was a CIA agent or had some relationship with the Agency, the Warren Commission stated in that their investigation "revealed no evidence that Oswald was ever employed [by the] CIA in any capacity.

In , former U.

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Furthermore, he found that both agencies withheld information that might have alerted authorities in Dallas that Oswald posed a potential threat to the President. Subsequently, Newman expressed a belief that CIA chief of counter-intelligence James Angleton was probably the key figure in the assassination.

According to Newman, only Angleton "had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot. Watson stated the president felt that [the] CIA had had something to do with plot. One conspiracy theory suggests that a secret or shadow government including wealthy industrialists and right-wing politicians ordered the assassination of Kennedy. In the farewell speech given by U. Eisenhower before he left office on January 17, , warned the nation about the power of the military establishment and the arms industry.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. Former Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough in stated: I think we would have escaped that. According to author James W. Douglass , Kennedy was assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War and seeking a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union. Oliver Stone 's film, JFK , explored the possibility that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy involving the military-industrial complex. The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that it investigated "alleged Secret Service complicity in the assassination" and concluded that the Secret Service was not involved.

No actions were taken by the agent in the right front seat of the presidential limousine Roy Kellerman to cover the President with his body, although it would have been consistent with Secret Service procedure for him to have done so. The primary function of the agent was to remain at all times in close proximity to the President in the event of such emergencies. Some argue that the lack of Secret Service protection occurred because Kennedy himself had asked that the Secret Service make itself discreet during the Dallas visit.

Palamara reports that Secret Service driver Sam Kinney told him that requests—such as removing the bubble top from the limousine in Dallas, not having agents positioned beside the limousine's rear bumper, and reducing the number of Dallas police motorcycle outriders near the limousine's rear bumper—were not made by Kennedy. Colin McLaren , a former Australian police detective sergeant, was inspired by Bonar Menninger's Mortal Error , [] to approach the assassination of Kennedy as a cold case investigation, [] and treating Howard Donahue's expert testimony as that of just one witness of many.

After more than four years of research, [] he published a book titled JFK: The Smoking Gun , [] which was accompanied by a documentary. He quotes many more witnesses than Donahue or Menninger as having believed that shots were fired at ground level, and observes a pattern of concealment of evidence. The House Select Committee on Assassinations wrote: Many of these exiles hoped to overthrow Castro and return to Cuba. Their hopes were dashed with the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in , and many blamed President Kennedy for the failure.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that some militant Cuban exiles might have participated in Kennedy's murder. In , the committee reported:. President Kennedy's popularity among the Cuban exiles had plunged deeply by Their bitterness is illustrated in a tape recording of a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch on October 1, Allegedly, Novo was affiliated with Lee Harvey Oswald and Frank Sturgis and carried weapons with them to a hotel in Dallas just prior to the assassination.

These claims, though put forth to the House Assassinations Committee by Lorenz, have never been substantiated. Don DeLillo dramatized the Cuban theory in his novel Libra. Government documents have revealed that some members of the Mafia worked with the Central Intelligence Agency on assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid the fact that he was sent by the CIA, instead portraying himself as an advocate for international corporations. Roselli introduced Maheu to two men he referred to as "Sam Gold" and "Joe".

So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro—the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos. Some conspiracy researchers have alleged a plot involving elements of the Mafia, the CIA, and the anti-Castro Cubans, including Anthony Summers, who stated: In fact, there's no contradiction there. Those three groups were all in bed together at the time and had been for several years in the fight to topple Fidel Castro. Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy involving disgruntled CIA agents, anti-Castro Cubans, and members of the Mafia, all of whom were extremely angry at what they viewed as Kennedy's appeasement policies toward Communist Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Carlos Marcello allegedly threatened to assassinate the President to short-circuit his younger brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.

Evidence From the JFK Assassination Case

Scheim cited in particular a fold increase in the number of out-of-state telephone calls from Jack Ruby to associates of these crime bosses in the months before the assassination, and to an attempted confession by Jack Ruby while in prison. Kaiser has also suggested mob involvement in his book, The Road to Dallas.

Anderson said that although he was never able to independently confirm Roselli's entire story, many of Roselli's details checked out. Anderson said that Oswald may have played a role in the assassination, but that more than one gunman was involved. Johnny Roselli, as previously noted, had worked with the CIA on assassination attempts against Castro.

He said that he was offered the assassination contract on President Kennedy, but that he did not accept it. However, he said that he knew the men who did accept the contract. According to David, there were three shooters. He provided the name of one— Lucien Sarti. David said that since the other two shooters were still alive, it would break a code of conduct for him to identify them. When asked what the shooters were wearing, David noted their modus operandi was to dress in costumes such as official uniforms.

The book Ultimate Sacrifice , by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann , attempted to synthesize these theories with new evidence. The authors argued that government officials felt obliged to help the assassins cover up the truth because the assassination conspiracy had direct ties to American government plots to assassinate Castro. Outraged at Robert Kennedy's attack on organized crime, mob leaders had President Kennedy killed to remove Robert from power.

A government investigation of the plot was thwarted, the authors allege, because it would have revealed embarrassing evidence of American government involvement with organized crime in plots to kill Castro. Johnson of being involved in the assassination of Kennedy. According to journalist Max Holland , the first published allegation that Johnson perpetrated the assassination of Kennedy appeared in Penn Jones, Jr. Nelson, [] and Madeleine Brown.

The fact that JFK was seriously considering dropping Johnson from the ticket in favor of NC Governor Terry Sanford should Kennedy run in has been cited as a possible motive for Johnson's complicity in the assassination. Johnson would be replaced as Vice President of the United States.

That conversation took place on November 19, , just three days before the assassination of President Kennedy and was recorded that evening in her diary and reads as follows:. Kennedy sat in the rocker in my office, his head resting on its back he placed his left leg across his right knee. He rocked slightly as he talked. In a slow pensive voice he said to me, 'You know if I am re-elected in sixty-four, I am going to spend more and more time toward making government service an honorable career.

I would like to tailor the executive and legislative branches of government so that they can keep up with the tremendous strides and progress being made in other fields. To do this I will need as a running mate in sixty-four a man who believes as I do. Lincoln went on to write "I was fascinated by this conversation and wrote it down verbatim in my diary. Now I asked, 'Who is your choice as a running-mate? But it will not be Lyndon. The book suggests that a smudged partial fingerprint from the sniper's nest likely belonged to Johnson's associate Malcolm "Mac" Wallace , and that Mac Wallace was, therefore, on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time of the shooting.

The book further claims that the killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil magnates, including Clint Murchison and H. McClellan states that the assassination of Kennedy allowed the oil depletion allowance to be kept at It remained unchanged during the Johnson presidency. The History Channel assembled a committee of historians who concluded the accusations in the documentary were without merit, and The History Channel apologized to the Johnson family and agreed not to air the series in the future.

Madeleine Brown , who alleged she was the mistress of Johnson, also implicated him in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. In , Brown said that Johnson, along with H. Hunt, had begun planning Kennedy's demise as early as Brown claimed that by its fruition in , the conspiracy involved dozens of persons, including the leadership of the FBI and the Mafia, as well as prominent politicians and journalists. Edgar Hoover at a social gathering at Murchison's mansion the night before the assassination. Thornton , and H. Kennedys will never embarrass me again—that's no threat—that's a promise.

In the same documentary, several other Johnson associates also voiced their suspicions of Johnson. Charles Crenshaw authored the book JFK: Conspiracy of Silence , along with conspiracy theorists Jens Hansen and J. Crenshaw was a third-year surgical resident on the trauma team at Parkland Hospital that attended to President Kennedy. He also treated Oswald after he was shot by Jack Ruby. Crenshaw said that Johnson inquired about Oswald's status, and that Johnson demanded a "death-bed confession from the accused assassin [Oswald]".

Shires, but that Oswald was in no condition to give any statement. Howard Hunt accused Johnson along with several CIA agents whom he named of complicity in the assassination in his posthumously released autobiography American Spy: In , convicted swindler Billie Sol Estes made statements to a Grand Jury in Texas indicating that he had "inside knowledge" that implicated Johnson in the death of Kennedy and others.

Kurtz wrote that there is no evidence suggesting that Johnson ordered the assassination of Kennedy. In its report, the Warren Commission stated that it had investigated "dozens of allegations of a conspiratorial contact between Oswald and agents of the Cuban Government" and had found no evidence of Cuban involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.

This support included funding exiles in commando speedboat raids against Cuba. In , Clare Luce said that on the night of the assassination, she received a call from a member of a commando group she had sponsored. According to Luce, the caller's name was "something like" Julio Fernandez and he claimed he was calling her from New Orleans.

According to Luce, Fernandez told her that Oswald had approached his group with an offer to help assassinate Castro. Fernandez further claimed that he and his associates eventually found out that Oswald was a communist and supporter of Castro. He said that with this new-found knowledge, his group kept a close watch on Oswald until Oswald suddenly came into money and went to Mexico City and then Dallas.

Luce said that she told the caller to give his information to the FBI. Both committees investigated the incident, but were unable to uncover any evidence to corroborate the allegations. Helms further stated that the CIA had employed members of the Mafia in this effort, and " On separate occasions, Johnson told two prominent television newsmen that he believed that JFK's assassination had been organized by Castro as retaliation for the CIA's efforts to kill Castro. In October , Johnson told veteran newsman Howard K. Finally, in , Johnson told his former speechwriter Leo Janos of Time magazine that he "never believed that Oswald acted alone".

In , Castro was interviewed by newsman Bill Moyers. Castro denied any involvement in Kennedy's death, saying:. It would have been absolute insanity by Cuba. It would have been a provocation. Needless to say, it would have been to run the risk that our country would have been destroyed by the United States. Nobody who's not insane could have thought about [killing Kennedy in retaliation]. The Warren Commission reported that they found no evidence that the Soviet Union was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. According to some conspiracy theorists, the Soviet Union, with Nikita Khrushchev motivated by having to back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis , was responsible for the assassination.

According to a FBI document, Colonel Boris Ivanov—chief of the KGB Residency in New York City at the time of the assassination—stated that it was his personal opinion that the assassination had been planned by an organized group, rather than a lone individual.

Botulism pills, the CIA, the Mob and the JFK assassination

The same document stated, " Much later, the high-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. He claimed that "among the leaders of Moscow's satellite intelligence services there was unanimous agreement that the KGB had been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. David Lifton presented a scenario in which conspirators on Air Force One removed Kennedy's body from its original bronze casket and placed it in a shipping casket, while en route from Dallas to Washington. Once the presidential plane arrived at Andrews Air Force Base , the shipping casket with the President's body in it was surreptitiously taken by helicopter from the side of the plane that was out of the television camera's view.

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Kennedy's body was then taken to an unknown location—most likely Walter Reed Army Medical Center [] —to surgically alter the body to make it appear that he was shot only from the rear. According to the report, Lt. Lipsey mentioned that he and Wehle then flew by helicopter to Bethesda and took [the body of] JFK into the back of Bethesda. Laboratory technologist Paul O'Connor was one of the major witnesses supporting another part of David Lifton's theory that somewhere between Parkland and Bethesda the President's body was made to appear as if it had been shot only from the rear.

O'Connor said that President Kennedy's body arrived at Bethesda inside a body bag in "a cheap, shipping-type of casket", which differed from the description of the ornamental bronze casket and sheet that the body had been wrapped in at Parkland Hospital. Researcher David Wrone dismissed the theory that Kennedy's body was surreptitiously removed from the presidential plane, stating that as is done with all cargo on airplanes for safety precautions, the coffin and lid were held by steel wrapping cables to prevent shifting during takeoff and landing and in case of air disturbances in flight.

Jim Marrs, in his book Crossfire , presented the theory that Kennedy was trying to rein in the power of the Federal Reserve , and that forces opposed to such action might have played at least some part in the assassination. A article in Research magazine discussing various controversies surrounding the Federal Reserve stated that "the wildest accusation against the Fed is that it was involved in Kennedy's assassination.

Immediately following Kennedy's death, speculation that he was assassinated by a " Zionist conspiracy " was prevalent in much of the Muslim world. Johnson received orders from Zionists to have Kennedy killed, and that the assassin was a Zionist agent. Ben-Gurion, to shed light on Dimona's nuclear reactor in Israel ".

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Assassination of John F. Kennedy in popular culture. Umbrella Man JFK assassination. Trial of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. CIA Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. I do not recall looking toward the Texas School Book Depository. I looked back in the vacinity [ sic ] of the garden. Not in Your Lifetime.

Archived from the original on November 1, Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U. United States Government Printing Office. Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History: Retrieved September 1, Making Sense of the Assassination". Reviews in American History. University Press of Mississippi.

Retrieved September 4, Olmsted March 11, Kennedy Assassination a Conspiracy". Mafia, federal government top list of potential conspirators". Archived from the original on August 1, Detention and Death of Oswald, Chronology. Edinburgh University Press Ltd. The New York Times. Retrieved April 26, The Assassination of President John F. Investigation of Possible Conspiracy". Kennedy, Chapter 6 , p. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Retrieved March 25, Conspiracy Theories in American History: Retrieved May 16, Retrieved March 15, An Investigation into the Assassination of John F.

Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy. University of Kansas Press.

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The Report on the Warren Report. Skyhorse Press; originally self-published. Archived from the original on December 13, Salt Lake City, Utah. Retrieved December 23, The Last Dissenting Witness. Retrieved February 26, The Plot that Killed Kennedy. Hearings before the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U. Southern Poverty Law Center Retrieved December 22, The Plot to Stop the Kennedys.

House of Representatives, Volume X , p. Retrieved July 8, Retrieved March 8, Assassination Records Review Board. Retrieved on July 15, Retrieved January 8, Retrieved January 7, The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record. Retrieved January 6, Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Although more JFK files are expected to be released through April, important questions about Giancana and Roselli will likely remain unanswered, given the shadowy nature of this long-ago spy tale.

Like strands in a ball of yarn, these individual memos and documents unwind to reveal a complicated tale far greater than Americans ever realized at the time. In the scope of history, the Mafia spy scheme against Castro shows how easily U. But it also holds important lessons at a time when some Americans fear their trusted institutions could go astray.

But for more than a decade, the plot was known to only a few. Eisenhower and was embraced by Kennedy when he took office in Giancana, the gruff, violent mob boss based in Chicago, dreamed of exporting his Midwest criminal enterprise to Latin America. One amusing JFK file recalls how Roselli, a pal of movie studio tycoons, once collected a gambling debt from a delinquent actor as a favor to his Marx Brothers friends, Harpo and Chico.

Maheu also simultaneously worked for a handsome salary as a private fixer for multi-millionaire Howard Hughes. And for a time, their arrangement seemed to work. Documents in the JFK files show that when CIA officials explained the situation to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in May , he agreed to drop the criminal probe against the gangsters because of the ongoing Cuban effort. Despite their deadly reputation, the Mafia duo failed repeatedly to rub out Castro, as the JFK documents show.

Other failed commando attempts launched from Florida were chalked up to ill luck or bad timing. Some conspirators involved with the two gangsters double-crossed them for their own purposes. Varona was liked by the Kennedy administration and hailed as a freedom fighter by the American press. And in the shadows, Trafficante kept his illicit empire humming along uninterrupted.