Castro, The Mafia Killed JFK

Progressive Talk Show Host, Thom Hartmann and co-author, Lamar Waldron, have written a book called "Ultimate Sacrifice: John And Robert Kennedy, The Plan For a Coup In Cuba, and the Murder of JFK".

On Friday's Thom Hartman Program, Thom and Lamar had a 2 hour discussion on their new book, which is 900 pages in length with some 2700 references, mostly from the National Archives, detailing what they surmise really happened to JFK.

More below the fold.

They claim the following.

• JFK/RFK had devised a secret plan to overthrow Castro on December 1, 1963, just days after JFK was killed.


• The assassination in Dallas, was the third plot on JFK's life, this one successful.


• The Kennedy plan was penetrated by the three mafia godfathers--Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante and Johnny Roselli--being vigorously pursued by Attorney General Robert Kennedy, along with a dozen of their associates, six of whom were also working on the Coup Plan.  


• The first plot to kill JFK was in Chicago 2 weeks prior to his assassination.


• The second plot to kill JFK was in Tampa a week prior to JFK's Assassination


• Finally, Mafia Godfather, Carlos Marcello of New Orleans who ran New Orleans and East Texas, finished the hit.


• RFK lead the charge to cover up who was behind JFK's assassination, fearing that disclosure of their secret plot to overthrow Castro would spark WWIII

You can subscribe ($5.95) to Thom Hartmann's Archives on White Rose Society and listen to Friday's show, where the two authors discuss their new book, very convincingly too.

Also, you can find out more info on the book from UltimateSacrificeTheBook.com.

Great stuff.

•  Tips

  Based on the interview I heard on Thom's show, it seems they really did massive ammounts of research and referencing to make their case.

  It definitely is an interesting take with lots of bombshell stuff.

  by The 1n Only Leoni on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:14:57 PM PDT

•  The Mob

  Robert Blakely, who was counsel to the House Assasination Committee in the late 70s, also concluded that it was the mob who was behind it.

  by Paleo on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:16:15 PM PDT

  •  The Mafia is a Strawman

    I don't buy it. Castro involving himself in something like that less than a year after the biggest crisis of the cold war resulted in a negotiated guarantee of the island's saftey? and the hawks in JFK's administration don't use the discovery of this plot as an excuse to invade Cuba like they wanted to in '61 and '62?

    its a red herring.

    by Seeds on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:11:46 PM PDT

    •  I agree....

      If there was a conspiracy it was Big Steel or Big Oil or Big Something...or some combination.

      If there was a conspiracy, the anwer is right under our noses, and we can't see it. We can't see it because nobody wants to see it.

      The rest, as you say, is a red herring.

      I am not sold on conspiracy, though.

      by Big Nit Attack on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 06:52:47 PM PDT

      •  I believe there was one...

        and I believe that is as bad as most people speculate it was. I think a philosophical cabal not unlike our present day neocons feared the re-election of JFK and revolted. the specifics of how that happened are probably impossible to know. they may or may not have acted in conjunction with other power centers in the country and through some bit players who left intriguing traces behind, but the specifics themselves can't be gleaned from this.

        there is so much to be skeptical about. for me it begins with Oswald's death on TV and in a police station. if it happened anywhere else in the world, we'd laugh at the suggestion of an innocent explation. couple that with the fact that you could not reconstruct the evidence of the government's own case if you wanted to today because so much of it has been lost or destroyed.

        i think its one of those things that anyone close enough to know the truth also knows not to ask.
        

        by Seeds on Wed Nov 23, 2005 at 09:20:20 AM PDT

  •  Johnny Roselli

    Bill Bonanno, in his book Bound By Honor and other places, definitely has Johnny Roselli as the main trigger man.  Read here:

    One day while I was sitting in the yard, with a number of other inmates, Johnny Roselli, out of Chicago, was very upset, infuriated in fact, about the treatment that he was being given by his people in Chicago. One of this group had made a remark about Jack Ruby, and Johnny made the statement that "Jack was a lot more loyal than that (expletive) Sam." Whether or not it actually happened the way it was related to me, I don't know I do know this: That Johnny Roselli told me that he was the shooter in the sewer below the grassy knoll. And that there were others that were backups behind the wall of the grassy knoll. They were Frenchmen. I've been asked many times whether I believe him, and I irrevocably believe him, because I have known Johnny for a long time. I know the type of person he was, and there would not be any purpose of him saying it if it were not true. Because he knew the people that he was talking with that day in the Yard. It was not a long gunman. In reality, Lee Harvey Oswald was the fall guy.

    Don't know for sure, but I did read the book a few years back, and it's a good read.  The Roselli stuff is right near the end.

    by MN camera on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 03:16:50 PM PDT

•  Rosicrucians

  I'm still convinced that it was the Rosicrucians.

  by bink on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:27:09 PM PDT

•  Sorry

  I truly believe it was orchestrated by insiders at the CIA/DOD and the GOP military industrial complex.

  No tinfoil hat theories.  Just simple fact based on the decade's events after his death.

  by jackemoe on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:43:14 PM PDT

•  I agree...

  And since the CIA is known to work with all kinds of thugs, maybe the CIA orchestrated a mob hit.

  by ckaupp on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:46:07 PM PDT

  •  Questions about CIA's role

    Just posted this on one of the earlier threads, but it's appropriate here:

    One of the (many) unresolved questions in the assassination investigation is the role of George Joannides, a CIA man who likely handled the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE), a group of anti-Castro exiles, in Miami.

    The Washington Post's Jefferson Morley only uncovered this ongoing cover-up by the CIA in 1994, writing about it in 2002's What Jane Roman Said.  

    Suspicions about Joannides's role were only heightened when it was determined that, in 1978, Joannides had been:

    ...called out of retirement to serve as the agency's liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The agency did not reveal to the Congress his role in the events of 1963, compromising the committee's investigation.

    The CIA continues to thwart attempts to uncover the truth about the role of George Joannides. In 2004, a group of "lone gunman" and "conspiracy theory" Kennedy assassination researchers (think Hatfields and McCoys) sent a letter to the CIA requesting they release records related to Joannides as these met the definition of "assassination-related" records under the JFK Records Act.  Also among the signatories to the letter was Robert Blakey, the general counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.  In a 2003 Salon article, Blakey says that if he had known Joannides' background, he would have immediately relieved him of his duties and made him "a witness under oath."

    In May 2005, the CIA filed motions in Federal Court CIA to block the release of the records related to Joannides.
    

    by sharkbite on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:52:11 PM PDT

•  Wow, the Mafia was so clever ...

  ...that they devised two back-up plans in case their other assassination attempts didn't succeed?

  There have been probably 2500 books written about various alleged conspiracies in the assassination, and over the past four decades I've read 100 of them. I guess not every possible permutation has been reached, but if this is all Hartmann and Waldron have come up with, they haven't touched on anything others before them hadn't already come up with.

  By the way, the only evidence of any confession from Trafficante came after his death from his lawyer, not exactly a stand-up guy.

  And what about Same Giancana, who was also supposedly the author of a contract on JFK?

  by Meteor Blades on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:51:21 PM PDT

•  The worst kind...

  ...of American exceptionalism, because it's equally prevalant on the Left and the Right. You just can't get over the fact that your golden boy was blown away by a crackpot, can you?

  And saying a book is reliable because it has a lot of references? Ann Coulter's books have a lot of references, too.

  by sagesource on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 12:52:22 PM PDT

  •  The opposite of exceptionalism

    during the height of the cold war, I also assume that it is very hard for 24-year-old-former defector-to-the-Soviet-Union-crackpots to get within shooting distance of the president.

    when a leader gets killed under really weird circumstances elsewhere in the world, and his supposed killer gets killed in police custody, I assume the corrupt government had something to do with it.

    that's not to say I couldn' be wrong. Maybe it really was the guy filled with bullet holes on the airport tarmac in Manilla that killed Aquino?

    by Seeds on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:18:17 PM PDT

•  jack anderson says it was the mob.

  I do not know what his reputation is around these parts, but I read his book "war, peace & politics" and, assuming he's honest about his conversations and investigations, it was the mob.

  he wont a pulitzer prize for his reporting on nixon's lies about american combat in cambodia & laos, if Im not mistaken.

  by skyterrain on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:08:04 PM PDT

  •  * won a pulitzer prize

    by skyterrain on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:08:32 PM PDT

•  my daddy said

  the book Contract On America was pretty damn close to exactly the truth, and although he was not mafiosa himself, he knew these guys, had visited Cuba twice in the late 50s to meet with some of the players (he was close friends to Myer Lansky) in the takeover of Cuba by organized crime. Contract On America pretty closely aligns with the mafia theory. Keep in mind that the three--mafia, anti-Castro Cubans and the CIA were all in bed together anyway.

  My dad was close friends with Lucky Luciano, who had  made a deal with the government during WW2 to protect the American ports. Over the ensuing decade of hyper anti-communism, more mafia types were brought into the CIA, and in fact my dad, who had been OSS behind German lines in WW2 (the precursor to the CIA), was hired to help undermine the growing Italian communist party in the post war years.  

  Simultaneously, the mafia had essentially bought up Havana, a city my father described as a combination of Marseilles, Tijiuana and Las Vegas--drugs, sex and gambling. Batista was the mafia's boy. Anything went in Havana.

  When the Kennedy's called off the Bay of Pigs, and kicked off some mafia family investigations [after they purportedly aided his election], the mafia was pissed. The CIA was pissed 'cause they hated the communists, I suppose, and the Cubans were pissed because they lost their cushy lifestyle under the dons. After Castro took over, by the way, one of the hotel chefs ended up at our house for a few weeks while he looked to re-settle.

  Of the three groups, the mafia had the means to pull this off without regret. I mean, that's what they do, they off people. The CIA could do it as well, but if caught it would mean the end of everything they had in terms of power. So they helped in little ways.

  Anyway, with nearly his dying breath, my Dad said, handing me the book, this is nearly exactly what went down. I know it, he said, from my contacts. Of course, they are all dead now. Oddly the book is out of print, but I'd imagine the same sources were used.

  by Mithrandir on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:12:16 PM PDT

  •  If I am Following You

    a major INTEL service works with, among other things, the criminal underground to get things done that are hard to do directly.

    this implicates the criminal underground, but not the INTEL service? and the criminal underground can take such action independent of their political benefactors without fear of retribution or loss of political protection?

    is that the theory?

    by Seeds on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:25:39 PM PDT

    •  it's a fact

      that the OSS/CIA worked with organized crime, first around port protection, then in anti-communist activities. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It's a theory backed by the information in the book I mentioned, as well as the current book by Hartman, that there was engagement between the mafia and the CIA around the overthrow of Castro. They both wanted the same thing, as did the displaced Cubans. I guess you could call it a theory, but the reality is that the mafia will kill anyone it needs to and they don't in fact answer to anyone unless they get caught. It's also theory I suppose that mafiosa types entered the CIA, just as they entered law enforcement, judgeships, etc. It would be grossly unfair to implicate the entire CIA, and I am certain many CIA operatives are above reproach, but could a pocket of CIA operatives be connected to the mafia? You bet.

      by Mithrandir on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 01:40:30 PM PDT

      •  yes I know all that

        my points is that this isn't a story of the mafia, but of the INTEL service. the power relationship between the two is overwhelmingly slanted to the government, and two-bit thugs do not piss off that kind of power on their own.

        by Seeds on Wed Nov 23, 2005 at 07:38:38 AM PDT

  •  When a murder occurs,

    cops suspect those who have motive, means and opportunity.

    In the case of the biggest murder case ever, the CIA, the mafia and their buddies, the anti-Castro Cubans, had motive, means and opportunity.

    So, the odds are that the CIA, mafia and/or anti-Castro Cubans killed JFK and got away with it.

    Because, obviously, whoever killed JFK shot from the grassy knoll.

     

    by devtob on Tue Nov 22, 2005 at 02:10:23 PM PDT