Something Is Wrong with the JFK Files

Something is wrong with the JFK files. Where is the information on the Mafia’s potential role in the death of JFK?

Law Prof. Emeritus of Notre Dame Robert Blakey and others have alleged that Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante Jr., and Sam Giancana conspired in the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in retaliation for federal investigations and prosecutions that threatened both the power and the multibillion-dollar profits of organized crime.

The House Select Committee

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations disagreed with the Warren Commission’s official history and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone. The Committee report could not prove who had participated in the assassination but stated that Marcello, along with Tampa mobster Santos Trafficante and Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, “had the motive, means, and opportunity to plan and execute a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.”

Excerpt from Ronald Goldfarb’s WaPo article: What the Mob Knew About JFK’s Murder. It was written in 1993.

“Of course, they did: Multiple indictments resulting from years of concentrated investigations were pending against Hoffa and Marcello. Trafficante was enraged that his wife had just been subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Florida.

“Many others hated Robert Kennedy for similar reasons. However, there was no new credible evidence to support the committee’s thesis. Then, Frank Ragano, a long-time lawyer for Trafficante and Hoffa, told Jack Newfield of the New York Post and PBS’s “Frontline” of conversations between his two notorious clients and Marcello that gave credence to the committee’s speculation.

“According to Ragano, then 70, Hoffa and Trafficante conspired with Marcello to kill the president. He had discussions with Hoffa in 1963 in which Hoffa indicated before the fact that he would like to have Kennedy killed. “This has to be done,” Hoffa railed to Ragano.

“Ragano, Newfield reported, told Trafficante and Marcello that Hoffa wanted Kennedy killed (“I want him dead”) and says they thought it was an acceptable idea. In November 1963, Ragano celebrated with Trafficante, who toasted the news that Kennedy was dead: “Our problems are over. I hope Jimmy is happy now,” he remembers Trafficante saying. According to Ragano, Hoffa was delighted. “Have you heard the good news?” he quotes Hoffa saying. “They got the S.O.B.” A few weeks later, Marcello told Ragano, “Jimmy owes me, and he owes me big.”

“Years later, in 1987, in a deathbed conversation, Trafficante told Ragano that the mob got rid of Hoffa, and that “Carlos {expletive} up. We should’ve killed Bobby, not Giovanni.”

“History is Bullshit”

“Ragano says that Trafficante once told him, “History is bullshit.”

“Newfield reported that three witnesses support Ragano’s statement that Marcello arranged the assassination.

“An FBI informant in 1976 said Trafficante told him Kennedy was “not going to make it to the election. He was going to be hit.” The informant later recanted; in 1978, he was murdered. In 1976, mobster Johnny Roselli said Sam Giancana told him he plotted the assassination with Trafficante and Marcello; Roselli was also was murdered. The House assassinations committee sought to interview Giancana about the allegations; before Giancana could testify, he was shot dead by unknown assailants.

“A Las Vegas “entrepreneur,” Ed Becker, was told by Marcello in September 1962 that he would take care of Robert Kennedy and that he would recruit some “nut” to kill JFK so it couldn’t be traced to him, according to several accounts. Marcello told Becker that “the dog {President Kennedy} will keep biting you if you only cut off its tail {the attorney general},” but the biting would end if the dog’s head was cut off. Becker’s information that Marcello was going to arrange the murder of JFK was reported to the FBI, though the FBI says it has no records of the Marcello or the Trafficante threats, nor of wiretapped remarks of Trafficante and Marcello in 1975 that only they knew who killed Kennedy.

“Newfield believes Trafficante and Marcello eventually will be shown to be the missing pieces to the “30-year jigsaw puzzle” about the assassination. So does Robert Blakey, a former member of the organized crime section and the counsel to the House assassinations committee. At the time of the committee’s report, Blakey concluded, “The mob did it. It’s a historical fact.”

“Ragano told John H. Davis, a Marcello biographer, that Marcello was “the central planner” of the assassination and that Trafficante and Hoffa supplied “the shooters.” What else Ragano knows presumably will come with his book unless his immunized testimony should be compelled sooner by a congressional committee or grand jury.

“Carlos Marcello reportedly kept a sign in his office stating, “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.” Now, Hoffa, Trafficante, and Marcello are all dead. But the final obituary of Carlos Marcello cannot be written until several known sources of information are plumbed.

“In 1980, Blakey was told by an assistant director of the FBI that the bureau had 1,350 reels of tape of Marcello, including some of him discussing the assassination. It would not, then, turn over the tapes.

“John Davis has sued the FBI to gain access to 161 excerpts of tapes compiled by prosecutors who used them when they tried Marcello in 1981 for racketeering. Davis says that some of the tapes include incriminating remarks by Marcello about the assassination. The case is pending in the Federal District Court in Washington.

“The “President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992” established a five-member review board to be appointed by the president to ensure the preservation and to facilitate the public disclosure of all government records relating to the JFK murder. One reason for the passage of the act was the failure of the Freedom of Information Act to assure public disclosure of known assassination records. The president was authorized to appoint the review board within 90 days of enactment of the law, which was signed by President Bush on Oct. 26, 1992. …

“Would the existing evidence, as well as any possible new evidence, add up to a case that would hold up in court? Adequate motive abounds. The means were there: Contract murder was in the Marcello and Trafficante repertoires. Marcello had associates in contact with Oswald and Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby. But as a prosecutor I would not go forward with such a circumstantial case. Not yet.”

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