In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, chaired by Rep. Louis Stokes, published their conclusion that "Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy." Their final report stated that "the Committee found that Trafficante, like Marcello, had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy." Marcello died in 1993, and Trafficante passed away in 1987, after discussing his role in Kennedy's murder with his attorney, the late Frank Ragano. As for motive, the Committee pointed out that from 1961 to 1963, President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had waged a massive war against organized crime. They had especially targeted the mob families of Marcello in New Orleans, Trafficante in Tampa, and the Chicago Mafia.
The full story of Marcello's confession--confirmed by the FBI supervisor of CAMTEX and the informant himself--is told for the first time in a just-published edition of "Legacy of Secrecy" by Lamar Waldron and radio host Thom Hartmann. The authors say they interviewed two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy, starting with JFK's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. This led them to files in the National Archives that showed how Marcello and Trafficante murdered President Kennedy in such a way that high US officials, including Attorney General Robert Kennedy, were forced to withhold key information from the Warren Commission and the press on the grounds of national security. "Legacy of Secrecy" is the main focus of a new Discovery Channel special entitled "Did the Mob Kill JFK?," produced by NBC. It airs on Discovery on December 4, 2009 at 9 p.m. and midnight (Eastern).
President Kennedy was killed just a year after the tense nuclear standoff of the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, Rusk told the authors and others that the Crisis never truly ended since Fidel Castro refused to allow inspections verifying that no missiles remained. Waldron and Hartmann document that in November 1963, John and Robert Kennedy were planning to stage a coup against Fidel Castro on December 1, 1963, ten days after JFK's trip to Dallas. The Kennedys were secretly working on the coup with Commander Juan Almeida, head of the Cuban Army and, for decades, the third highest official in the Cuban government.
After JFK's murder, Robert Kennedy and other US officials had to keep certain information from the press and public in order to protect Commander Almeida and--in the words of one declassified file--prevent "World War III." Commander Almeida remained in power in Cuba--unexposed for decades--and died on September 11, 2009.
In 1992, Waldron and Hartmann were told by former Kennedy aides that one of those working on sensitive parts of the JFK-Almeida coup plan in 1963 was CIA agent Bernard Barker, who later gained notoriety as a convicted Watergate burglar. A November 1963 CIA memo from the National Archives cites Barker as saying that "Juan Almeida" was "part of an operation [to] overthrow" Fidel Castro.
However, the Kennedys' aides said that while working on the coup plan in 1963, they (and the Kennedys) did not realize that Barker was also working for Tampa mob chief Santo Trafficante and had a role in JFK's assassination. Waldron and Hartmann spent 17 years compiling evidence of Barker's work for Trafficante. After Barker's death in June 2009, they documented this evidence and included it in the just-released trade paperback of "Legacy of Secrecy." This includes FBI and CIA files confirming Barker's Mafia ties, as well as the report of a Dallas deputy who identified Barker as the man that he and another officer encountered on the "grassy knoll" in Dallas, just seconds after JFK had been shot.
The 1992 JFK Act was passed unanimously by Congress, resulting in the release of four million pages of JFK assassination files. But a report by the Washington group, OMB Watch, found that "well over one million CIA records" related to JFK's assassination have not yet been released. In addition, though some uncensored FBI files about Marcello's JFK confession were found in the National Archives in 2006, the FBI's secret CAMTEX tape recordings of Marcello talking about Oswald, Ruby, and Trafficante have not yet been made public.
For more information, visit www.legacyofsecrecy.com
Members of the media who would like a copy of "Legacy of Secrecy" or to arrange an interview with Lamar Waldron, contact:
Tiffany Lee, Counterpoint
510.704.0230 x202
tiffany.lee@counterpointpress.com
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