“Yes. That’s the word I was searching for.”
“Well, I concur with you. It’s all a bit ... much.”
“Almost as if ... Oh, I don’t know, I’m just a nurse ... but ... as if this Jack Ruby wanted to silence Oswald.”
“That occurred to me, too. I imagine it will to many others as well. Today, and for a long time to come.”
“With Oswald dead, that will cloud things terribly. Make a full and thorough investigation nearly impossible.”
“It certainly will that.”
The nurse stopped in her tracks. “Will we ever find out the truth, doctor? If Lee Harvey Oswald really did kill Kennedy?”
The doctor halted, too. He thought her question over in his mind before answering. “That, nurse, may well turn out to be one of those things in life we never do know. Not for certain.”
“Good lord! And what were Oswald’s final words?”
“Before Ruby shot him? He didn’t have a chance to say much. He had a weird smile ... more a sneer ... on his face. I’ll never forget this! He stared into the TV camera as if he were the star of his own show. Then, like on, oh, I don‘t know, The Untouchables maybe, that big Ruby guy came up and just shot him. Right after Oswald spoke his last words.”
“Which were?”
“‘I’m a patsy.’”
POSTSCRIPTS
AADLAND, BEVERLY ELAINE had appeared in the classic musical film South Pacific at age fourteen, playing one of the pretty nurses. Though she never did make another movie after Cuban Rebel Girls, Bev briefly toured as a singer. In 1960 she ran afoul of the police when her then-current boyfriend was found shot dead in his apartment, Bev unable to fully explain her own involvement. She was never arrested for a crime, though, and after two ugly divorces had a baby girl with her third husband. As to Errol Flynn’s death, Bev always insisted that she could not reveal the actual circumstances out of fear for her own life. Once, though, while in Florida, she did tell all to a young man she met at a night club where she performed and, while under the influence of alcohol, spilled everything. Bev would not, when pressed, reveal that man’s identity. Bev took all such secrets to the grave with her in 2010.
BISSELL, RICHARD M., JR. necessarily stepped down as director of the CIA following the Bay of Pigs disaster. He was asked to head up a new Pentagon planning committee that would develop a replacement for the U2, rendered obsolete after Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet territory. He turned this offer down in order to join United Technologies, an independent company where he would prove instrumental in developing state-of-the-art weapons systems. Two years following Bissell’s death in 1998, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, his autobiography, was published.
BUESA, MANUEL F. ARTIME was captured shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco and imprisoned, then returned with other Brigade members on Dec. 24, 1962. He stood beside Pres. and Mrs. Kennedy when the First Couple welcomed survivors home five days later at Florida’s Orange Bowl. Working on his own, Buesa attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1965. Following the Watergate breakin, Buesa became a key fund raiser for the defense of the “plumbers,” most of whom he had earlier known and worked with. Though his death in 1977 was ruled as “natural,” there are many who consider it highly suspicious in nature.
CAMPBELL, JUDITH INMOOR (EXNER) called a press conference in 1975 when a senate committee, headed by Frank Church, set out to explore the Mob-CIA connections that may have led to the death of Pres. Kennedy. She announced to the press that she had never been Kennedy’s mistress and, though she did know Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli, they were platonic friends. When Rosselli broke the Mafia “code of silence” by speaking out and was soon thereafter whacked, then Giancana killed before he could “sing,” Judy apparently wanted to say whatever might save her life. In 1977, she reversed her position in an “autobiography” claiming that while she had been JFK’s mistress, never did she work with the Mafia, despite her close relationships with many Made Men. When Judy and her second husband, the famed golfer Dan Exner, separated in 1988, she hinted to friends that she was guilty of most of the accusations against her. She lived out her final years in Newport Beach and died of breast cancer in 1999.
GIANCANA, SAM during the late 1960s pioneered Iran and Central America as possible places to build new casinos. However, his stinginess with the profits caused him to fall out of favor with the Mob and in time be replaced by Joey “Doves” Aiuppa. Exiled to Mexico, Giancana lived in luxury there for many years until the authorities chose to arrest him, sending Sam “Gold” back where he came from. Returning to America, Giancana announced his plans to tell all to the FBI during their long-overdue probe of organized crime in America. He was shot in the back of the head in his home in Oak Park, IL shortly thereafter. Between his coming home and passing on, Giancana confided to several close friends that his longtime mistress, Phyllis McGuire, knew all that was taking place between the racketeers and the CIA and that she too had been one of his “plants” in Pres. Kennedy’s bed. However, those claims have never been substantiated.
JOHNSON, PRISCILLA (MacMILLAN) reached out to Marina Oswald shortly after the assassination about collaborating on a book that would relate the entire story from the widow’s point of view. Called Marina and Lee, it was first published in 1977. There are those who consider it the most honest and revealing book ever written about these historical figures. Others though claim that owing to Ms. Johnson’s loyalty to JFK, her status as a CIA operative, and her personal knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald while both were in Russia, her tome should be considered highly suspect, one more attempt to put the official spin on the tale.
KENNEDY, ROBERT joined the race for the Democratic presidential nomination when Pres. Lyndon Johnson announced early in 1968 that he would not run for re-election. Initially, Kennedy lost primaries to another contender, Eugene J. McCarthy from MN. In the wee small hours of the morning on June 5, 1968, Kennedy, at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, learned that he had just won the all-important California primary, pretty much cinching his grip on the ticket‘s top-spot. Moments later RFK was shot to death. The young Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan was arrested, charged with the crime, found guilty, and imprisoned.
LORENZ, MORITA is the name of the actual woman on whom ‘Lorita Morenz,’ a fictional character in this book, is based. Lorenz attempted to assassinate Castro with botulin pills for the CIA and Mob connection after her relationship with The Beard soured. Following that, Morita shifted back to dictators and began an affair with Marcos Pérez Jiménez, former Venezuelan strong-arm, with whom she had one child. Later she worked as a spy for the FBI, informing on Eastern block diplomats who lived in the New York apartment building she and her then-husband owned. In 2000 she attempted to reconnect with Fidel but he would have none of it.
MAHEU, ROBERT served for several more years as Howard Hughes’ “bagman,” a courier trusted to deliver large sums of cash from that billionaire businessman to his shadowy contacts. Among them was Bebe Rebozo, one of Richard Nixon’s closest friends. This led to Maheu becoming involved in the Watergate conspiracy. Surviving that fiasco, he returned to Vegas where Maheu opened his own company, having been given the heave-ho by Hughes, who publicly announced Maheu had been robbing him blind all those years. Maheu sued over that; Hughes settled out of court.
OSWALD, MARINA (PORTER) appeared four times before the Warren Commission, incriminating her husband for the assassination of Kennedy as well as his attempt on the life of Gen. Walker. She also announced that Oswald hoped to assassinate Richard Nixon. However, some Washington insiders insist that she bore witness against her husband only to avoid deportation to Russia for herself and her children. Two years later, she married a man named Jess Porter and had a child by him. They were divorced in 1974. Since then, as a naturalized citizen of the U.S., she has on many occasions proclaimed, and explained in detail, her full belief in the absolute innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald. At the time of this writing she continues to live in the Dallas area.
OSWALD, MA
RGUERITE passed away in 1981 at age 73. For more than fifteen years she had relentlessly crusaded to clear the name of her son, who had been declared by the Warren Commission as the sole killer of John Kennedy. Marguerite insisted that, owing to certain intimations from Lee over the years and things that she learned from Lee’s wife Marina on the day of the assassination, if only someone would listen she could verify that JFK had been assassinated by a conspiracy and her son, though he previously had met with members of that group, did not in any way partake of their decision to assassinate the president.
ROSEELLI, JOHNNY, aka JOHNNY HANDSOME, was on April 9, 1976 found floating in a 55 gallon steel fuel drum located in Dumfounding Bay, not far from Miami, FL. An autopsy revealed he had been shot and strangled, and that both his legs were sawed off, likely while the man was still alive. Probably a hit was carried out by his onetime compatriot Santo Trafficante, Jr. (after being ordered from above, likely by Sam Giancanna) as retribution for Rosselli’s “singing like a bird” when he was called before a Senate Committee to testify on joint attempts by the Mob and CIA to kill Castro and assassinate Pres. Kennedy.
SINATRA, FRANK, continued to reign as the world’s greatest singer of ballads and pop-standards until his passing in 1998. When distribution rights to the film The Manchurian Candidate eventually fell into Sinatra’s hands, the movie disappeared from re-release in theatres or on TV for many years. Though it has been claimed that the aging film was “played out,” that makes no sense since other classics from that era continued to regularly be broadcast. Even before The Manchurian Candidate slipped out of the public’s view, Suddenly had long since ceased to show up on TV.
STURGIS, FRANK, aka ‘George,’ was along with four other men arrested on June 19, 1972 for breaking into and attempting to set up a wiretap in the Democrat party’s headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, Washington. One possible reason was to learn if that party’s presidential candidate, George McGovern, was in contact with Fidel Castro in hopes of normalizing relations between the two countries should McGovern win the upcoming election against former vice-president Richard Nixon. While serving his prison term, Sturgis insisted “I will never leave this jail alive” if the full truth came to be known. Before his death in 1993 Sturgis confessed to Cardinal Cook of New York City’s Catholic church that he had arranged the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and framed Lee Harvey Oswald for that crime.
WALKER, MAJOR GENERAL EDWIN, continued to live in Dallas until his death from natural causes in 1993, at age 83. His political ambitions were based on his continuing insistence that for America to flourish as it, in his mind, once had, segregation must be re-established between the races so that a “pure” white ruling class could control what he believed to be the mongrel ethnic minorities. Always, he insisted that the unknown person who had attempted to assassinate him in his home on April 19, 1963, had to be the same shooter who killed President Kennedy.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bissell, Richard, Jr. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs. Yale University Press, 1996.
Bugliosi, Vincent. Four Days in November: The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. W.W. Norton, 2008.
Castro, Fidel. The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Nation Books, 2007.
Douglass, James W. JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Touchstone, 2010.
Dulles, Allen W. The Craft of Intelligence: America’s Legendary Spy Maser on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering in a Free World. Lyons Press, 2006.
English, T.J. Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution. William Morris Paperbacks, 2009.
Ernest, Barry. The Girl on the Stairs: My Search For a Missing Witness To the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. CreateSpace, 2011.
Escalante, Fabian. Executive Action: 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro. Ocean Press, 2006.
Evan, Thomas. The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Exner, Judith Campbell & Sloan, Sam. Mafia Moll: The Judith Exner Story. Ishi Press, 2008.
Fischer, Steve. When the Mob Ran Vegas: Stories of Money, Mayhem and Murder. Berkline Press, 2005.
Garrison, Jim. On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy. Sheridan Square Pub., 1988.
Giglio, James N. The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. University Press of Kansas, 1991.
Hancock, Larry. Nexus: The CIA and Political Assassination. Lancer, 2011.
Hunt, Jim & Risch, Bob. Warrior: Frank Sturgis—The CIA’s # 1 Assassin Spy. Forge Books, 2011.
Janney, Peter. Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meger, and Their Vision For World Peace. Skyhorse Pub., 2012.
Kelley, Kitty. His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra. Bantam, 1986.
Lane, Mark. Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK. Skyhorse Pub., 2011.
Latell, Brian. Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine. Palgrave, MacMillan, 2012.
Maheu, Robert and Hack, Richard. Next to Hughes: Behind the Power and Tragic Downfall of Howard Hughes by His Closest Advisor. Harpercollins, 1992.
Mailer, Norman. Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery. Randhom House, 1995.
Mallon, Thomas. Mrs. Paine’s Garage: And the Murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Mariner Books, 2003.
Marrs, Jim. Crossifre: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. Basic Books, 1989.
McMillan, Priscilla Johnson. Marina and Lee. Random House, 1980.
Munton, Don & Welch, David A. The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History. Oxford University Press, 2011.
O’Brien, Michael. John F. Kennedy’s Women: The Story of a Sexual Obsession. Now and Then Reader, 2011.
Posner, Gerald. Case Closed. Anchor, 1994.
Rappleye, Charles and Becker, Ed. All American Mafioso: The Johnny Rosselli Story. Barricade Books, 1995.
Rasenberger, Jim. The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Scribner, 2011.
Reeves, Richard. Kennedy: Profile of Power. Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Russo, Gus. The Outfit. Bloomsbury, 2003.
__________ & Molton, Stephen. Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder. Bloomsbury, 2009.
Schwartz, Ted. Hollywood Confidential: How the Studios Beat the Mob at their Own Game. Taylor Trade Pub., 2007.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Douglas Brode is a novelist, graphic novelist, produced playwright, Hollywood screenwriter, film and TV historian, and multi-award-winning journalist.
His more than thirty-five published books include the novel Sweet Prince, a retelling of the Hamlet legend, and Shakespeare in the Movies for Oxford University Press. He and Carol Kramer Serling collaborated on Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, the only official analysis of that late author's work and vision. Among Brode's best known books are studies of the careers of directors Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen, such genres as the gangster film and the Western, and the relationship of popular culture to contemporary politics. Brode's op-ed pieces are regularly syndicated to newspapers across the country.
During the course of his lifetime, Brode has been employed as a TV talk show host, radio commentator, drama and film critic, regional theatre actor, and magazine editor. As an educator, Brode teaches at the Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, during the fall semester, and for the department of Philosophy and Classics, University of Texas at San Antonio, each spring.
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Patsy! : The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald Page 45
