They Killed Our President

by Jesse Ventura, Dick Russell, David Wayne

  LBJ (Lyndon Johnson)

  Cord Mayer (Meyer)

  David Morales Bill Harvey

  French Gunman Grassy Knoll502

  I’d like to point out that one of the men on that list, William Harvey, was in charge of the CIA assassination unit codenamed ZR/RIFLE and is also on record as not only hating the Kennedys, but in preferring to use Corsican (French Mafia) killers for assassination purposes because they didn’t lead as directly to the Mafia like Sicilians did.503

  CIA Agent David Morales

  Morales—specifically named as a conspirator by Hunt—was also a high-ranking agent out of the CIA’s JM/WAVE station who was on record as hating the Kennedys. He too had a great deal of experience in CIA black ops. Morales even alluded to his own probable involvement in the assassination in comments that he made about his hatred for JFK:

  Well, we took care of that son-of-a-bitch, didn’t we?504

  In reference to the assassinations of both JFK and RFK, Morales reportedly said:

  I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard.505

  Los Angeles and “the little bastard” refer to the assassination of Robert Kennedy after he took the California primary during the 1968 race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

  CIA Chief of Station, John Stockwell

  John Stockwell was a CIA officer who became a station chief for the Agency and was awarded the CIA Medal of Merit for his work in Vietnam. But he became disenchanted with the Agency’s policies as a result of his experiences and resigned from the CIA. Stockwell was openly critical of the CIA’s “secret wars.”

  Stockwell had a military background and a lot of friends in the “spy trade”; he researched the JFK assassination very thoroughly and came to some very specific conclusions:

  A team of CIA, Cuban exile, and Mafia-related renegades organized a simple military ambush in Dallas and successfully gunned him down. The ambush and its cover-up were brazen and astonishingly open.506

  You will probably start recognizing some names that keep popping up, as well as that infamous ZR/RIFLE assassination program:

  I personally believe, from my knowledge of the CIA that elements of the CIA’s ZR/RIFLE program [an assassination group that was a component of OPERATION MONGOOSE] were probably involved in the conspiracy, along with Cuban exiles, and Sam Giancana, John Roselli, and Charles Nicoletti of organized crime. ZRRIFLE was exposed by the Senate Church Committee. The CIA’s Chief of Operations, Richard Bissell, admitted to its existence as did its founder, a rough impetuous man named William Harvey, who boasted of his criminal connections.507

  Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty

  You know him as the mysterious “Mr. X” in Oliver Stone’s film, JFK (the Colonel was a consultant for that movie). To say he knew his way around the intelligence community would be a pretty big understatement. Colonel Prouty was the main liaison between the CIA and United States Air Force, and at another time in his career, was Briefing Officer for the Secretary of Defense.

  Suffice to say that he knew of what he spoke. And what did he say, you might ask?

  Oswald was a patsy. There’s no question about it.508

  CIA Finance Officer James Wilcott

  Wilcott was a finance officer for the CIA. He served in Tokyo during the time that Oswald was stationed in the Far East. Wilcott testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Oswald had been recruited by the CIA for a double agent assignment in the Soviet Union. Wilcott said that he had handled funding for the project Oswald was on.509

  The CIA, Wilcott asserted, had some kind of ‘handle’ on Oswald and recruited him ‘from the military for the express purpose of a double agent assignment to the USSR.’510

  Gary Powers

  When you think of Gary Powers, you usually think of the downed spy pilot incident with the Soviet Union, because his U-2 spy plane was brought down in Soviet territory in a highly publicized event usually referred to as the “U-2 Incident” in 1960.

  But Powers was actually a veteran CIA agent who was one smooth operator. He was “Top Gun” way before anybody even thought of making the movie.511 In fact, I love his line that he always used when reporters would ask him how high he was flying in his U-2 when he was brought down. Powers would just smile and say: “Not high enough.”512

  Powers—and many others—suspected Lee Harvey Oswald played a role in providing the Soviets the information about the U-2 to bring it down because Oswald had been at the CIA’s Atsugi base where the U-2’s were launched and then was in Russia in 1960 as a phony defector.513 In any case, Powers did not believe the official version and found Oswald’s role much too coincidental.514

  490 Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 11.

  491 Russell, The Man Who knew Too Much, XVII.

  492 Bolden, The Echo From Dealey Plaza; Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

  493 Ibid.

  494 Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked (JFK Lancer: 2010): jfkfacts.org/tag/john-cummings/feed/ and The Mary Ferrell Foundation, “John Martino’s Confessions,” retrieved 16 May 2013: maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/John_Martinos_Confessions

  495 Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked: jfkfacts.org/tag/john-cummings/feed/

  496 Ibid.

  497 Ibid.

  498 Ibid.

  499 Ibid.

  500 Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation (Mary Ferrell Foundation: 2008).

  501 Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked.

  502 Saint John Hunt, Bond of Secrecy: My Life with CIA Spy and Watergate Conspirator E. Howard Hunt (TrineDay: 2012).

  503 Lamar Waldron & Thom Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination (Counterpoint: 2008).

  504 Fonzi, The Last Investigation.

  505 Shane O’Sullivan, “Did the CIA Kill Bobby Kennedy?,” November 20, 2006, The Guardian: spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmorales.htm

  506 John Stockwell, The Praetorian Guard: The U.S. Role in the New World Order, (South End Press, 1999).

  507 Ibid.

  508 Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, “The Col. L. Fletcher Prouty Reference Site,” retrieved 16 May 2013: prouty.org/

  509 Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 83.

  510 Ibid.

  511 Roadrunnerslnternationale, retrieved 16 May 2013: roadrunnersinternationale.com/powers_gary.html

  512 Ibid.

  513 COPA (Coalition on Political Assassinations), “Powers, U-2 Pilot Captured by Soviets, Awarded Silver Star,” retrieved 16 May 2013: politicalassassinations.com/2012/06/powers-u-2-pilot-captured-by-soviets-awarded-silver-star/

  514 COPA, “CIA documents show US never believed Gary Powers was shot down,” retrieved 16 May 2013: politicalassassinations.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/cia-documents-show-us-never-believed-gary-powers-was-shot-down/

  51

  Testimony and Wiretapped Conversations of Mobsters

  Chauncey Holt

  I covered Holt’s role in the earlier section on the “three tramps,” one of whom was Holt. But if you check that, you’ll notice that the testimony of Holt strongly links Mafia and CIA members as having done “business” together for a long, long time.

  Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante

  Two Mafia Godfathers who were involved in that linkage between the CIA and the Mafia were Marcello, head of Louisiana and Texas and a major force nationally in the mob, and Trafficante, based in South Florida and also a major force. They were both the targets of FBI operations.

  Federal wiretaps were instrumental in prosecution of the Mafia, and in the process, information pertaining to the JFK assassination was also obtained from numerous conversations. Government wiretaps and Mafia informants have provided detailed confessions to direct involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.

  FBI documents reveal that New Orleans Mafia Godfather Carlos Marcello confessed his involvement in the JFK assassination on several occasions.515

  FBI wiretaps reveal that Florida Ma
fia Godfather Santo Trafficante expressed knowledge of his involvement in the assassination, even making a deathbed statement to his attorney, Frank Ragano.516

  The following conversation took place between Santo Trafficante and his friend and Miami businessman, Jose Aleman, in 1963, shortly before the assassination of President Kennedy:

  TRAFFICANTE: Have you seen how his brother is hitting Hoffa . . . mark my word, this man Kennedy is in trouble and will get what is coming to him.

  JOSE ALEMAN: Kennedy will be re-elected.

  TRAFFICANTE: You don’t understand me. Kennedy’s not going to make it to the election. He is going to be hit.517

  And here is what the Teamster boss—and avowed Kennedy hater—had to say about what his Mob brethren pulled off.

  JIMMY HOFFA:

  I told you they could do it. I’ll never forget what Carlos and Santo did for me.518

  The New Orleans mob boss wanted to be sure that Hoffa never forgot.

  CARLOS MARCELLO:

  When you see Jimmy, you tell him he owes me and he owes me big.519

  Here, Marcello explains just why Hoffa owed him big—he’d gotten rid of JFK, whose brother Bobby was Hoffa’s nemesis.

  Carlos Marcello (from FBI records; spoken to an FBI confidential informant):

  I had the little son-of-a-bitch killed, and I’d do it again . . . I wish I could have done it myself.520

  Santo Trafficante (Spoken telephonically by Trafficante on FBI wiretap in 1975, shortly after the murder of Sam Giancana):

  Now there’s only two people alive who know who killed Kennedy, and they ain’t talkin’.

  Santo Trafficante (Deathbed statement of Trafficante to his attorney, Frank Ragano; spoken in Sicilian, days before Trafficante’s death):

  Carlos fucked up. We should not have killed John. We should have killed Bobby.521

  Johnny Roselli:

  Columnist Jack Anderson befriended Roselli and, gradually over time, important facts came out of that relationship. Anderson wrote the following about it, in this case with Roselli trying to point the finger back at Castro.

  Before he died, Roselli hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy’s murder. It was the same conspirators, he suggested, whom he had recruited earlier to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro.

  According to Roselli, Castro enlisted the same underworld elements whom he had caught plotting against him. They supposedly were Cubans from the old Trafficante organization. Working with Cuban intelligence, they allegedly lined up an ex-Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had been active in the pro-Castro movement.

  According to Roselli’s version, Oswald may have shot Kennedy or may have acted as a decoy while others ambushed him from closer range. When Oswald was picked up, Roselli suggested the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald making it appear as an act of reprisal against the President’s killer.522

  So there’s a lot of documentation—from the FBI’s own files—linking those guys to the assassination:

  Trafficante ‘had been recruited in the CIA’ plots to kill Castro months before JFK became president.523

  Like Marcello, Trafficante later confessed his involvement in JFK’s assassination.524

  Recently declassified FBI documents confirm that just a few years before his own death, Carlos Marcello confessed on three occasions to informants that he had had JFK killed.525

  James Files

  James Files is a man in prison who says he was a shooter that day on the grassy knoll. He’s still alive and has been interviewed in custody. Some people in the JFK research community have questioned his veracity but, if you take a close look, most of the attacks on him are suspiciously weak (like saying he was doing covert ops in Laos before we were actually in Laos). Much of his story matches up with the actual evidence. For example, he says he was wearing a reversible plaid jacket—which matches up precisely with Lee Bowers’ testimony of the man he saw with a rifle on the grassy knoll. There are a lot of other corroborations like that, too.

  Wim Dankbaar, a Dutch businessman, constructed a great website with a lot of research, specializing in Files, Holt, and tons of other information: jfkmurdersolved.com/index1.htm.

  Dankbaar also hired former FBI Special Agent Zack Shelton to look into the Files case like he had investigated Chauncey Holt and his connections. Zack had tons of experience in the FBI organized crime unit, so he checked out everything about Files’ story, friends, and history; checking his background and then checking and double-checking every little part of his testimony. He verified Files’ bona fides with the mob in general and Chuck Nicoletti (Files’ boss) in particular. That alone makes what he has to say well worth listening to.

  You can see Files’ testimony online; like Chauncey Holt’s testimony, he ties together the links between the Mafia and elements of the CIA: youtube.com/watch?v=tFhu-yeyb_Y.

  Also online, you can see FBI vet Zack Shelton discussing the case in general and Files in particular. This is a great clip that details the findings of his ten-year, unbiased, professional investigation: jfkmurdersolved.com/index1.htm.

  515 “FBI Document 124-10182-10430,” Bradley S. O’Leary & L.E. Seymour, Triangle of Death: The Shocking Truth About the Role of South Vietnam and the French Mafia in the Assassination of JFK (WND Books: 2003); Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

  516 Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer; Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

  517 Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

  518 Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer.

  519 Ibid.

  520 “FBI Document 124-10182-10430,” O’Leary & Seymour, Triangle of Death.

  521 Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer.

  522 Jack Anderson, “JFK plot: Did mobster’s death cover up secret,” September 8, 1976: news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19760908&id=3PYuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QtsFAAAA IBAJ&pg=4912,1845880

  523 David Talbot, “The man who solved the Kennedy assassination,” Salon.com, 11-22-03: ultimatesacrificebook.com/outline.html

  524 Jack Newfield, “I want Kennedy killed,” May 1992, Penthouse; Ragano and Raab, Mob Lawyer, 346–354, 361; Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice: ultimatesacrificebook.com/outline.html

  525 FBI DL 183A-1f035-Sub L 3.6.86 and FBI Dallas 175-109 3.3.89, cited by A. J. Weberman; CR 137A-5467-69, 6-9-88, cited by O’Leary & Seymour, Triangle of Death: ultimatesacrificebook.com/outline.html

  52

  Other Witnesses

  Judyth Vary Baker

  Judy Baker is someone I can personally vouch for; I’ve sat right next to her and gone back and forth over these issues, and I know that she’s a person of high integrity. Judy was a very close friend of Oswald in New Orleans just prior to the assassination, and they were having a serious romantic affair.

  Her book, Me & Lee, tells the whole story about Oswald being set up to take the fall. It’s incredible stuff, and she has extensive documentation for her claims:

  Judyth shows the evidence and relates—from her first-hand experience—all she knows about the Kennedy assassination, her love affair with Lee Oswald over the summer of ‘63, her conversations with him as late as two days before JFK’s death, his role as a deep-cover intelligence agent who was framed for an assassination he was actually trying to prevent, and how he was silenced by his old friend Jack Ruby.526

  There’s also a good recent video from her 2012 interview by CBS News that captures her integrity, in my opinion.527 Just Google “Judyth Vary Baker 60 Minutes” or go to: cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50135979n.

  So—as a result of her direct knowledge—she doesn’t just think Oswald was U.S. intelligence; she knows he was. And she doesn’t just think he was set up as a patsy, she knows that one, too.

  Madeleine Duncan Brown

  Ms. Brown had a twenty-one-year romantic affair with Lyndon Johnson and gave birth to
a child from him. Her book, Texas in the Morning, details those events and there’s also an excellent documentary on her testimony, “The Clint Murchison Meeting—November 21, 1963” that goes into all the details: youtube.com/watch?v=POmdd6HQsus.

  But to summarize briefly right here, Ms. Brown was present with Lyndon Johnson at a party at the home of Texas oil millionaire, Clint Murchison. Present there were Murchison, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Dallas Mayor R. L. Thornton, future President Richard Nixon, John McCloy (chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and head of the Ford Foundation, as well as future Warren Commission member), oil baron H. L. Hunt (reportedly the “world’s richest man” at that time), George Brown (founder of Brown & Root, which later became Halliburton), and various others whom she recognized as members of the “8F Group.”528

  At the end of the evening, there was a clandestine meeting where the plot to kill JFK was finalized. Johnson despised John and Robert Kennedy—he referred to them as “the Irish Mafia”—and the group’s plans against JFK were apparently finalized on November 21, 1963. Madeleine Brown describes Johnson’s arrival at Murchison’s:

  Tension filled the room upon his arrival. The group immediately went behind closed doors. A short time later Lyndon, anxious and red-faced, re-appeared.

  I knew how secretively Lyndon operated. Therefore, I said nothing . . . not even that I was happy to see him. Squeezing my hand so hard it felt crushed from the pressure, he spoke with a grating whisper—a quiet growl into my ear not a love message, but one I’ll always remember:

  ‘After tomorrow those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again—that’s no threat—that’s a promise.’529

  When you take the time to listen to a witness like this, who has come forward at no benefit to herself, you get an idea of how much valid information is actually out there that we are not given access to. You can witness her intelligence and sincerity online in the documentary, The Clint Murchison Meeting530: youtube.com/watch?v=POmdd6HQsus.