The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination (62 page)

Richard Helms died on October 23, 2002, having successfully maintained his decades-long cover-up in the public eye and largely rebuilt his reputation in the process. E. Howard Hunt, his former protégé, died on January 23, 2007. In his posthumously published autobiography, Hunt admitted that David Atlee Phillips had run Alpha 66, Antonio Veciana’s group, for the CIA, and that if Richard Helms was involved in something negative, “he would lie about it later.”

Hunt limited his JFK assassination comments in his book to speculation, some of which was inconsistent with remarks he made to his son in a so-called “confession” tape. Other of Hunt’s claims are demonstrably false. Hunt tried to make millions selling his story to actor Kevin Costner before his death, and some of Hunt’s account appears to have been cribbed from existing JFK conspiracy books, as he speculated about a large conspiracy that could have included LBJ, Cord Meyer, William Harvey, David Phillips, David Morales, Frank Fiorini, and French hit man Lucien Sarti. Most tellingly, Hunt never mentioned—in his autobiography or in his son’s tape—the documented Mafia ties of his best friend Manuel Artime and former assistant Barker, or their work on the CIA–Mafia plots. Whether Hunt was involved in the assassination, or was used by Barker on behalf of Trafficante, might only be known when the remaining JFK assassination files are released.

Bernard Barker died on June 5, 2009. On September 11, 2009, Commander Almeida passed away in Cuba, with his work for John and Robert Kennedy never having been publicly exposed to the Cuban people. In the last years of Almeida’s life, after Fidel Castro’s illness forced him to step down, Almeida had very high profile in Cuba.

After serving twenty-one years in a Cuban prison, former exile leader Eloy Menoyo was released in 1986, the same year Senator
Edward Kennedy engineered the release of the last Bay of Pigs prisoner. Menoyo later returned to Cuba to work for peace and died in 2012. Former exile leaders Manolo Ray and Antonio Veciana are still alive, in Miami and Puerto Rico, respectively. Several Cuban-exile military veterans of AMWORLD and JFK’s Cuban-American training at Fort Benning have formed CAMCO, an outreach to military leaders inside Cuba.

Standing in the way of any true normalization between the US and Cuba is the continued withholding of so many JFK assassination files. The respected Washington think tank OMB Watch found that “well over one million CIA records” pertaining to JFK’s assassination remain unreleased. But despite the 1992 law requiring their release, the CIA intends to keep those records secret until at least 2017 and has reserved the right in court filings to keep them secret even longer. With Almeida’s death, there is no longer any legitimate national security reason for so many files to be withheld.

As of September 16, 2013, the National Archives has refused to tell the public or journalists exactly how many JFK assassination files (and tapes) are still secret. Until all the files are released, former officials and CIA personnel will continue to say or imply that Fidel killed JFK, thus perpetuating the fifty-plus-year Cold War with Cuba.

Only public pressure on Congress and the White House can get the remaining JFK files released. They are important not just for history but also for our democracy. And for framed ex–Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden, still fighting for a pardon after almost fifty years, they represent his last chance for justice.

*
All references to Joe Marcello refer to Carlos’s younger brother, NOT to Carlo’s son, who was also named Joe.

*
Ragano later admitted to G. Robert Blakey that he hadn’t been able to remember the exact day during that time period when Trafficante made his statement, so he simply picked the most likely possibility to use in his book.

SELECTED GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

This memo refers to the FBI’s CAMTEX undercover operation that targeted godfather Carlos Marcello in prison, and obtained his confession to JFK's murder. It calls FBI informant Jack Van Laningham “DL 2918-OC” and talks about the Title III electronic surveillance of Marcello.

This May 29, 1963 memo was issued just over two weeks after Cuban Army Commander Juan Almeida, the third most powerful official in Cuba, offered to stage a “palace coup” against Fidel Castro, if President Kennedy would back him.

After months of careful planning, the date for the JFK–Almeida coup was set for December 1, 1963, as shown by the memo sent by CIA Director John McCone to the Miami CIA Station, on the morning of November 22, 1963. The secret coup plan, and the code-name for part of it—AMWORLD—was withheld from the Warren Commission and the five later US government committees that investigated JFK’s murder.

In case it appeared that Fidel Castro had found out about the JFK–Almeida coup plan, and retaliated by the “assassination of American officials,” Robert Kennedy had a subcommittee of the National Security Council make plans about how to handle such a situation. The thinking behind those plans would cause some of the secrecy and controversy surrounding JFK’s assassination.

JFK had barred the Mafia from the coup plan, or from reopening their casinos in Cuba if the coup were successful. But this file shows that John Martino—an associate of godfathers Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante—was one of a dozen mobsters who managed to learn about the top secret coup plan (See last three lines of first paragraph). They linked JFK’s assassination to the coup, triggering even more official secrecy about JFK’s murder.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

T
his is a selected Annotated Bibliography of the source material used in
The Hidden History of the JFK Assasssination
. Far more books, documents, and articles were consulted than can be listed here, but the exact source for most quotes can be found using Google. My previous books dealing with JFK’s assassination, each had approximately 2,000 endnotes, with almost every paragraph, sometimes every line end noted. This book highlights just the most important references, in an easier-to-read format. More references will be available after November 10, 2013 at
thehiddenhistoryofthejfkassassination.com
.

More detailed information about any of the topics covered in this book can be found in my earlier books.
Ultimate Sacrifice
(2008 updated Counterpoint trade paperback, 952 pages) covers JFK’s plan for a fall, 1963 coup in Cuba in great detail, as well as all of the events leading up to JFK’s assassination.
Legacy of Secrecy
(2009 updated trade paperback, 923 pages) has new material about JFK’s murder especially its aftermath and the cover-ups that followed.
Watergate: The Hidden History
(2013 updated trade paperback, 808 pages) dedicates several chapters to JFK’s murder in the historical context of the CIA careers of Richard Helms, E. Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, and Mafia don Johnny Rosselli. The trade paperback of each contains important material not in the hardback editions.

I’ve listed the most important, well-documented books related to JFK’s assassination that have stood the test of time. Some are not yet available as eBooks, and others are out of print, but copies can be found online.

All government files cited in this book have been declassified and are available at the National Archives. Of their 4.5 million pages of JFK assassination files, they have only a few hundred pages online, most related to the plans for a coup in Cuba, at
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/

However, almost a million pages of JFK assassination files can be viewed online at
maryferrell.org
by using document numbers or other information that I’ve provided. A Google search for documents using some or all of that information will often locate the document.

Other sources of documents online include the Harold Weisberg Collection at Hood College (
http://jfk.hood.edu/index.shtml?home.shtml
); JFK Lancer at
www.jfklancer.com/
; JFK Facts at
http://jfkfacts.org
; and The National Security Archive at
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

GOVERNMENT REPORTS:

Reports from government committees and commissions used in the preparation of this book include:

• JFK Assassination Records Review Board
Final Report
(1998) online at
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/contents_arrb.htm

• House Select Committee on Assassinations
Final Report
(1979) at
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca_report.htm

• House Select Committee on Assassinations twelve volumes of supporting evidence and testimony:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca_vols.htm