Legacy of Secrecy (85 page)

plots. Arthur Schlesinger, who didn’t know about Almeida, observed

Bobby shortly after the column and wrote that “an indefinable sense of

depression hung over him, as if he felt cornered by circumstance and

did not know how to break out.”25

The rest of Jack Anderson’s March 3, 1967, column was designed not

for Bobby, but for other officials in both Washington and New Orleans.

It noted Jim Garrison’s JFK investigation, saying, “Insiders believe he

is following the wrong trails.” The column also addressed the fact that

in 1967, it was still inconceivable to the average American that the US

would try to murder foreign officials. (It would be another eight years

before the American press widely reported such plots.)

Anderson dropped a couple of notable names to indirectly buttress

his case, saying, “Those who may be shocked that the CIA would con-

sider stooping to a political assassination should be reminded of the ugly

nature of what Secretary of State Dean Rusk has called ‘the back-alley

struggle.’” Anderson also quoted “Clark Clifford, head of the President’s

Foreign Intelligence Committee,” regarding CIA operatives who were

captured and then “subjected to the most skillful, most fiendish tortures

[and] reduced to animals.” Clifford’s comments unintentionally sup-

ported Rosselli’s “turned-around assassins” story.26

Anderson foreshadowed today’s debates about the use of waterboard-

ing and other forms of torture against CIA prisoners when he wrote that

“we also play rough” and cited a
New York Times
report that quoted

“‘one of the best-informed men in Washington on this subject’ as saying:

‘When we catch one of them (a Soviet or other agent), it becomes neces-

sary to get everything out of them, and we do it with no holds barred.’”

Besides laying more groundwork for Rosselli’s story, those lines may

have especially worried Richard Helms, who knew the CIA was still

holding Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko in appalling conditions.

It’s ironic that Richard Helms, who had withheld so much from Bobby

and JFK, was one of the few people Bobby could turn to for help and

information in the aftermath of Anderson’s column. Bobby could at

least talk freely to Helms about things like Almeida and the CIA-Mafia

plots, which Bobby had withheld from his current advisors. At that time,

Bobby knew far less about the article than LBJ, who knew at least that

Anderson’s information originated with “Hoffa’s attorney,” Ed Mor-

gan. Helms could help Bobby find out who was talking to Anderson, so

Bobby arranged to meet Helms for lunch the following day.

Before Bobby saw Helms, he had to deal with his own staff. Accord-

ing to journalist Sy Hersh, after reading Anderson’s column, Bobby told

his young assistants, Adam Walinsky and Peter Edelman, a bit about

the CIA-Mafia Castro assassination plots, saying, “I didn’t start it. I

stopped it . . . I found out that some people were going to try an attempt

on Castro’s life and I turned it off.” Frank Mankiewicz said Bobby “told

me that there was some crazy CIA plan at one time for sending some

Cubans in to get Castro which he called off.”27

On March 4, 1967, when Bobby met Helms for lunch, he was prob-

ably glad that the major newspapers and TV networks had not yet fol-

lowed up on Anderson’s sensational column—whether due to pressure

on the media from Helms and the CIA, or because Anderson’s story was

drowned out by news from New Orleans about Garrison. At their meet-

ing, Bobby and Helms probably discussed what Helms had told—or was

going to tell—LBJ about the CIA-Mafia plots, the 1963 coup plan with

Almeida, and the current status of Almeida and his family.28

As for what Helms would tell LBJ about the CIA-Mafia plots,

it appears that LBJ had learned very little about them at that point.

However, Anderson’s column would soon change that. If LBJ asked,

Helms would at least have to give the president the same information

LBJ could learn from J. Edgar Hoover. That would explain why, on the

day of Bobby’s lunch meeting with Helms, Bobby had his secretary call

Hoover’s office and ask for a copy of the FBI’s May 7, 1962, memo about

the CIA-Mafia plots.

Though this lunch is the only clearly documented meeting between

Bobby and Helms after Anderson’s first column, Bobby likely had fur-

ther contact with Helms or one of his men, especially after Anderson’s

next column about the matter and LBJ’s request that Helms give him

a full report about the 1963 CIA-Mafia plots. Because the press was

still speculating that Bobby might run for president the following year,

Helms was in a delicate position: He couldn’t offend Bobby, or else

Helms might not be kept on as Director if Bobby became president—yet

as LBJ’s CIA Director, Helms couldn’t appear to be too close to Bobby.

Their subsequent contact on the matter was probably handled through

420

LEGACY OF SECRECY

Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans whom Bobby

still saw socially. FitzGerald knew the secrets as well as Helms did,

including those Helms still withheld from Bobby.

Once Richard Helms returned to CIA headquarters after his meeting

with Bobby, he no doubt discussed the situation with FitzGerald. They

both had much to lose if their unauthorized continuation of the CIA-

Mafia plots in 1963 became known to LBJ or was exposed in the press.

Their careers were on the line, to say nothing of the possibility of being

dragged into Garrison’s investigation.

Helms’s actions regarding the matter for the next two weeks are not

documented, but can be inferred from declassified files. In 2007, the CIA

admitted that in the 1960s, it tapped the phones of Washington colum-

nists Robert Allen and Paul Scott, suspected of “publishing news articles

based on, and frequently quoting, classified [CIA] materials.” A CIA

memo says those phone taps were “particularly productive in identify-

ing contacts of the newsmen . . . and many of their sources of informa-

tion.” Also disclosed in 2007 was that a few months before Watergate,

Richard Helms himself had the CIA conduct covert surveillance of Jack

Anderson and his assistants, including a young Brit Hume (now with

Fox News), in order to find out who was leaking to them. The CIA

admits the surveillance Helms ordered was “to determine Anderson’s

sources [of] highly classified Agency information appearing in his syn-

dicated columns.”29

Helms would have wanted to know who was leaking the CIA-Mafia

plot information to Jack Anderson, and what other relevant information

Anderson possessed that had not yet been published. As we’ll detail

shortly, the CIA was able to discover that Anderson and Pearson had

additional sensitive information about the CIA-Mafia plots they had not

yet printed. Given what the CIA did in similar circumstances, Helms

may have ordered the CIA to use phone taps or physical surveillance on

Anderson, which could have included FBI-style “black bag,” surrepti-

tious break-ins, which CIA veterans later used during Watergate. Helms

could have rationalized such actions as necessary for national security,

because the situation involved covert US operations against Cuba.

It’s important to keep in mind that Helms’s concerns about Anderson’s

column were occurring while the Garrison investigation in New Orleans

was still unfolding. Garrison’s inquiry was a major focus for Helms, and

many CIA documents show that the Agency followed every twist and

turn in Garrison’s case, running checks on each person whose name

surfaced not only in Garrison’s investigation, but also in news reports

or books about the case. This continued not just in 1967 and 1968, but for

years afterward, until at least 1974. In addition, Helms was having the

CIA make efforts to undermine or block Garrison, indirectly assist

the defense of Clay Shaw, and influence how the news media covered

the case. Amidst all that, Helms had to find the source of Anderson’s

leak, while trying to keep him and other journalists from publishing

more damaging information about the CIA.

The ultimate effect of Anderson’s column (and Garrison’s investiga-

tion) was a high level of cover-ups and concealment almost unmatched

since the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination. Three years after

JFK’s murder, many of the same officials were once more trying to qui-

etly investigate matters while simultaneously withholding information

from the public and one another. Bobby, Helms, LBJ, and Hoover were

again players in the drama, trying to discover things that Rosselli, Mar-

cello, and Trafficante already knew.

Chapter Thirty-four

Johnny Rosselli had not gotten what he wanted from Anderson’s first

column: for the CIA to make the FBI back off on his immigration case.

In addition, Marcello and Trafficante had not gotten the leverage they

needed to keep their ally Jimmy Hoffa from going to prison, nor had

there been any public backlash against Bobby Kennedy over Anderson’s

revelations. As a result, Rosselli got Anderson to publish another col-

umn, this time with one important element missing.

The next column by Anderson on Rosselli’s story would eliminate

any reference to the “underworld,” meaning the Mafia. Unlike when

Rosselli had first leaked his story to Anderson back in January 1968, the

Garrison investigation was now grabbing headlines across the coun-

try, and New Orleans was filled with reporters from around the world.

While the Mafia angle had been needed in January to grab the attention

of high officials, now it could harm Marcello if Rosselli focused the

reporters’ attention on the Mafia, which had so far escaped blame in

JFK’s assassination.

While Drew Pearson was still traveling in South America with Earl

Warren, Jack Anderson submitted his follow-up column on March 6, to

run on March 7, the same day Jimmy Hoffa was scheduled to report to

prison. Unknown to Anderson, on March 6 his first column was finally

starting to have the impact Rosselli sought. On that date, LBJ’s Attorney

General, Ramsey Clark, received a detailed FBI report provocatively

titled “Central Intelligence Agency’s Intentions to Send Hoodlums to

Cuba to Assassinate Castro.”1

That memo was soon brought to LBJ’s attention, and in it the FBI

detailed much of what its top officials knew about the CIA-Mafia plots

involving Johnny Rosselli, Sam Giancana, and Robert Maheu. The FBI

said that Bobby Kennedy had been made aware of the use of the mob-

sters “to obtain intelligence . . . in Cuba” in May 1961, and that Bobby

had learned of the operation’s assassination aspects in May 1962, at

which time he had “issued orders that [the] CIA should never again

take such steps without first checking with [him].” The FBI also noted

that William Harvey had met with Rosselli in June 1963, when Harvey

claimed he finally shut down the operation.2 (The FBI memo didn’t men-

tion the Bureau’s surveillance of Rosselli in Miami in the fall of 1963,

when he was working on the CIA-Mafia plots while meeting with David

Morales and Jack Ruby—indicating those sensitive files were already

being held separately from the main Rosselli FBI files.)

The FBI said that Rosselli had “used his prior connections with [the]

CIA to his best advantage.” According to the FBI, the CIA’s Director

of Security “admitted to us that Rosselli has [the] CIA in an unusually

vulnerable position and that [Rosselli] would have no qualms about

embarrassing [the] CIA if it served his own interests.” Essentially, the

CIA had taken the rare step of admitting to the FBI that Rosselli had the

Agency over a barrel.3

LBJ had been skeptical of the Anderson/Pearson story, but Hoover’s

report confirmed that the CIA had indeed plotted extensively with Ros-

selli and the Mafia to kill Castro. This knowledge caused LBJ to take

the whole matter much more seriously, and he would soon demand a

full report from Richard Helms and tell the FBI to interview William

Morgan. The resulting reports, coupled with the next day’s Anderson

column, would have a major impact on what LBJ believed about JFK’s

assassination—not just at the time, but for years to come, until his own

death.4

The
Washington Post
ran Anderson’s new revelations on March 7, 1967,

even though they were tacked on to the end of a much longer story about

Congressional corruption, where they would have been easy to cut. The

column’s main headline was about the unrelated Congressional story,

but near the end was a subhead, “Castro Counterplot,” that signaled

the start of four short paragraphs updating the March 3, 1967, story.

Anderson wrote that the publicity surrounding Garrison’s investigation

“has focused attention in Washington on a reported CIA plan in 1963

to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro, which, according to some sources,