Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination
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Whatever Sam Giancana knew about the Cuban operations, assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he took them to the grave. For as disbelief mounted in the American people regarding the lone-gunman prognosis of the Warren Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing to question him, Giancana was himself murdered.
1976
Information obtained by the Church Committee leads to an expansion of the investigation. The House Select Committee on Assassinations is formed and authorized to fully investigate the new leads in the assassination.
July 27, 1976
Johnny Roselli is warned to leave Miami.
July 28, 1976
Roselli is murdered.
Winter, 1976–Spring, 1977
The House Select Committee on Assassinations continues its investigation. Two of the witnesses that the Committee determines will be called to testify are Giancana associate, Chuck Nicoletti, and George de Mohrenschildt.
March 29, 1977
Chuck Nicoletti is murdered. George de Mohrenschildt reportedly “commits suicide” on the exact same day, which is also the day he was scheduled to give testimony; however, the circumstances of de Mohrenschildt’s death also point to murder.
Information in the above chart derived primarily from:
Antoinette Giancana, John R. Hughes, DM OXON, MD, Ph.D.& Thomas H. Jobe, MD, JFK and Sam: The Connection Between the Giancana and Kennedy Assassinations, (Cumberland House: 2005);
Charles Brandt, I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa (Steerforth Press: 2005)
John Simkin, Jimmy Hoffa: Biography,
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhoffa.htm
From the crime scene, it appeared that Giancana had turned his back on the gunman, whereupon the assassin produced his pistol, shot him in the back of the head six times, then rolled his body over, reloaded, and shot several bullets around his mouth. The M.O. matched that of a standard mafia hit, and the message sent by the mouth shots was quite clear: Giancana had already said too much—and would never talk again; especially to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The murder weapon, a silenced
Duramatic semi-auto .22 pistol, was later found snagged in the brush on a bank of the Des Plaines River. The last recorded sale of the gun was traced to a Miami gun dealer in 1965.1
The message, in any case, was exceedingly clear:
All other organized crime witnesses took note of Giancana’s fate. Most remained silent.2
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
Murder: Silenced witness testimony specifically linked to JFK assassination.
1 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 105.
2 Ibid, 105.
Victim
Johnny Roselli, the Mafia liaison to CIA, in the CIA’s efforts to recruit mobsters to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Cause of Death
Garroted (strangled with a wire from behind), stabbed, shot, legs sawn off, stuffed into oil drum, and sunk into ocean.
Official Verdict
Mafia retaliation killing
Actual Circumstances
Roselli was scheduled to testify before Congress. He was apparently silenced to preclude that testimony.
42
Johnny Roselli,
August, 1976
Johnny Roselli began his criminal career with Al Capone and was sent to Hollywood by Capone in 1924 “to develop gambling, extortion and vice rackets” for the Chicago Mob.1 He eventually became a close associate of the leading mafia members of his era, including Meyer Lansky, Sam Giancana, and Santo Trafficante. His charming demeanor and Hollywood-style looks, usually accompanied with sunglasses, got him nicknamed “Handsome Johnny.” That, combined with his love of the sun and boating, made him a natural for what he smoothly dovetailed into. He was “Chicago’s Man” in Las Vegas, Hollywood, and Miami Beach, acting as the Chicago Mob’s liaison for lucrative business interests in those locations. For example, he was involved in the multi-million dollar extortion of movie studios, and also oversaw the extremely lucrative “skimming” operation on the Las Vegas Strip (taking millions in cash from the daily “take” at the big casinos and keeping it “off the books” for accounting and would-be tax reporting purposes), ensuring that Chicago got its fair share of the skim.2 Those were huge “responsibilities” in the world of the mob.
Roselli was also connected to billionaire Howard Hughes. Hughes was one of the richest and most influential people in the world at the time, sharing the mutual interest with the mob and CIA of “eliminating” Fidel Castro by any means available:
Las Vegas mafia figure, Johnny Roselli, served as a hinge pin between the Hughes organization (via Robert Mayheu), the three mafia families of Giancana, Marcello and Trafficante, and the CIA. It was Roselli who provided the main mafia action connection to hitmen, money laundering, and weapons.3
In 1961, the CIA approached Roselli to enlist help from the mafia in assassinating Fidel Castro. Roselli went through Sam Giancana of Chicago, to enlist the help of Trafficante of Florida, because it was Trafficante’s Cuban connections that would be a valuable resource in the enterprise.
On March 12, 1961, William Harvey (of the CIA’s Executive Action assassination program) arranged for CIA operative, Jim O’Connell, to meet Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante, Johnny Roselli, and Robert Maheu (Howard Hughes’s go-between for the CIA and mafia) to meet at the Fontainebleau Hotel (in Miami Beach). During the meeting, O’Connell gave poison pills and $10,000 to Roselli to be used against Fidel Castro.4
The plan failed, but its ultimate purpose succeeded, because, as author Richard Mahoney points out, the alliance between the mob and CIA was what ultimately made the cover-up following the JFK assassination a guaranteed event:
Late one evening, probably March 13, Rosselli passed the poison pills and money to a small, reddish-haired Afro-Cuban by the name of Rafael “Macho”
1 John William Tuohy, “Johnny Hollywood: Part One,” April, 2002: http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_202.html
2 Wikipedia, “John Roselli,” accessed 14 Nov 2014: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roselli
3 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 114.
4 John Simkin, “John Roselli: Biography,” The Education Forum, (parenthetical comments added), accessed 13 Nov 2012: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKroselli.htm
Gener in the Boom Boom Room, a location Giancana thought to be “stupid.” Rosselli’s purpose, however, was not just to assassinate Castro, but to set up the mafia’s partner in crime, the United States Government. Accordingly, he was laying a long, bright trail of evidence that unmistakably implicated the CIA in the Castro plot. This evidence, whose purpose was blackmail, would prove critical in the CIA’s cover-up of the Kennedy assassination.1
In 1976, the House Select Committee on Intelligence Activities was very interested in taking testimony from Johnny Roselli:2
In late July 1976, Roselli made a dinner date. He was seen with his old friend Santo Trafficante at The Landings, a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. Two days after dining with Santo, Roselli disappeared.3
It was a very gruesome case of “over-kill” that was obviously intended to send a message. Roselli’s dismembered body was found floating in a 55-gallon oil drum off the coast of Florida:
He had been garroted. Roselli’s legs had been sawed off and squashed into the drum with the rest of his body.4
That’s the thing about working for the mob—they have good benefits for a few years, but then the retirement plan really stinks.
They buried him in the classic style. His body was sealed in an empty 55-gallon oil drum. Heavy chains were coiled around the container and holes were punched in the sides. Then the drum was dumped in the waters off Florida. It might have stayed on the bottom indefinitely—except that the gases caused by the decomposing body gave the drum buoya
ncy and floated it to the surface.5
As Time Magazine put it, it was “Deep Six for Johnny”:
The manner of Roselli’s death also fit a mafia pattern: He was beguiled to his death by someone he trusted. The dumping of his body in the bay was another message.6
Another reason Trafficante should have been a suspect was because of the point that, of the three nationally prominent mobsters known to be working directly with the CIA on eliminating Fidel Castro, only Trafficante was left. Giancana and Roselli were both murdered before their scheduled testimony.
1 Richard D. Mahoney, Sons and Brothers, The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (Arcade: 1999).
2 Simkin, “John Roselli: Biography”
3 Frank Ragano & Selwyn Raab, Mob Lawyer (Random House: 1996).
4 Simkin, “John Roselli: Biography”
5 “Deep Six for Johnny,” Time Magazine, August 23, 1976: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945646,00.html
6 Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer
One fact, however, was indisputable: Santo Trafficante was the only survivor of the three mobsters recruited by the CIA to kill Castro.1
Covert operations veteran Tosh Plumlee was very active in such matters; he even flew Roselli and Chuck Nicoletti to certain locations on “company” business. In fact, Roselli was so active in intelligence ops that many operatives thought Roselli actually was Military Intelligence. He even had a codename for Military Intel ops, “Colonel Ralston”; and was so commonly known that some operatives simply referred to him as “The Colonel.”2
Mr. Plumlee agrees that Roselli was killed to keep him from testifying about what he knew about the mafia’s involvement in the anti-Castro operations of U.S. Intelligence, and how it led to the JFK assassination.
Here’s how he answered the question, “Why do you think Johnny Roselli was killed?”
Mainly, because he was getting ready to testify and we have to understand that the Kennedy assassination was one of many, many black-op operations that were going on at that particular time and Roselli was up to his neck in making liaison with the members of Organized Crime for elements within CIA and Military Intelligence.3
Plumlee knew what he was talking about. Although acknowledging that intel was intentionally compartmentalized and that he was not privy to where the intel on the JFK assassination attempt was picked up (resulting in the “Abort Team” being flown into Dallas), Plumlee certainly was aware of the talk and rumors circulating among his fellow operatives, which is, of sorts, a form of raw intelligence gathering as well. That intel was quite clear in that it generally conformed to the source of the JFK-targeting for assassination as being the Texas Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans.
In the early stages of the Kennedy assassination, there were many, many, many reports that Kennedy was going to be “hit” and many, many reports that Kennedy was going to be “hit” by organized crime; so this was all investigated. That’s why I don’t feel that any direct involvement on a high level from our government was involved in the Kennedy assassination, but I certainly believe that there were rouges within the CIA, rouges within the Military Intelligence, rouges within the mafia, and rouges within the high-ups in the National Security Council that were certainly aware that an attempt was going to be made. The mechanics of the attempt, I don’t think that they were aware, and I think that they launched an extensive intelligence gathering investigation to find out if the rumors that were circulating around Southern Florida were true, that Kennedy was
1 Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer
2 Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong
3 Wim Dankbaar, “Robert ‘Tosh’ Plumlee Interview 6/4/92 Dallas,” accessed 2 Nov 2012: http://
www.jfkmurdersolved.com/TOSHTRANS1.htm, expanded and clarified in: Tosh Plumlee, emails to author,
12-15 Nov. 2012.
going to be “hit”; first in Austin, Texas; later it was West Palm Beach as the location; then Austin, Texas, and then it turned out to be Dallas.1
And the source of the hit on JFK was apparently the mafia’s connection to the CIA attempts to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro:
On the point about the information regarding a JFK assassination attempt in late 1963, there were a lot of rumors circulating around MI (Military Intelligence) and CIA, as well as FBI and their Cuban connections within organized crime in Havana. There was a lot of talk that it was the Texas Mafia that was going to do the job, and also talk that Cubans were involved.2
And Roselli knew so much about the JFK assassination that it was certainly intimidating to those who were closely involved:
Roselli also claimed that a CIA hit team that had been dispatched to Cuba had been “turned” and used to kill Kennedy.3
That point gels precisely and quite chillingly with a very specific quote from the CIA’s David Atlee Phillips:
I don’t know why he killed Kennedy, but I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro.4
That’s some pretty big stuff there, folks.
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
Murder: Silenced witness testimony specifically linked to JFK assassination.
1 Ibid.
2 Tosh Plumlee, email to author, 14 Nov 2012.
3 Simkin, “John Roselli: Biography”
4 David Atlee Phillips, The AMLASH Legacy (unpublished manuscript), in Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong, 146.
Victim
Charles Nicoletti, hitman, Chicago Mob
Cause of Death
Three .38 gunshots to rear of head
Official Verdict
Mafia retaliation killing
Actual Circumstances
Nicoletti was the premier mob hitman in the country, was known to be in Dallas at the time of the JFK assassination, and was named as a shooter by many with inside knowledge. Nicoletti was also known to be unhappy about the recent assassination of his benefactor, Sam “The Man” Giancana. Like Giancana before his murder, Nicoletti was scheduled to soon testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He was apparently silenced to preclude that testimony.
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Chuck Nicoletti,
March 29, 1977
It is not at all surprising that Nicoletti was shot from the back. He was as tough a customer as they come, and if he had seen even a glimpse of it coming, the shooter would not have lived to talk about it.
Since Chuck Nicoletti was the premier hitman in the country in 1963, and “contracted” his work directly with Chicago’s Sam Giancana, it should be asked where he was on November 22, 1963, when JFK was shot. The answer to that question is that he was in Dallas. In fact, Nicoletti’s “work book” entry for that date is stark and chilling. It simply states:
Dallas–JFK.1
A number of sources confirm that Nicoletti was present in Dealey Plaza when the shots were fired, and even how he arrived there and departed.2 Wim Dankbaar’s book, Files on JFK, and the work of former FBI veteran Zack Shelton clearly document how Chauncey Holt drove Nicoletti into Dallas and how he was taken into and out of Dealey Plaza. The events of November 22, 1963 were certainly one of the things that the House Select Committee on Assassinations was planning to ask Nicoletti about. But he was murdered before that testimony took place.
March 29, 1977, was a day that two key witnesses were brutally killed: Nicoletti was shot three times in the back of the head while he sat in his car; George de Mohrenschildt, subject of a later chapter in this book, died from wounds sustained from a shotgun blast to the head on the same day. “Both men were due to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations where they were to be asked about their involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.”3
Apparently, Nicoletti was on-record as being unhappy about the earlier hit made on his boss, Sam Giancana. It makes sense, therefore, that the same parties who silenced Giancana also found it in their obvious best interest to silence Nicoletti. A “cover story” about mob retaliation was put forward, but the real reason was apparently to keep
Nicoletti away from testifying:
On the date of his death, Nicoletti received three .38 slugs to the back of his head, in what seems to be an effort to silence his disdain for the slaying of Sam Giancana and any other possible relevant issues. The hit was seen as retaliation for a hit on a Milwaukee mob leader, but that is a reported cover. During his career as a hitman, he was involved in as many as twenty mob hits, and is alleged to have been involved with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.4
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
Murder: Silenced witness testimony specifically linked to JFK assassination.
1 Wim Dankbaar, Files on JFK. Zack Shelton, Interview with author, 2006.
2 Dankbaar, Files on JFK. Zack Shelton, Interview with author, 2006, Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong.
3 John Simkin, “Charles Nicoletti: Biography,” accessed 12 Nov 2012: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKnicoletti.htm
4 La Cosa Nostra Data Base, “Charles Nicoletti,’ accessed 12 Nov 2012: http://www.lacndb.com/
Info.php?name=Charles%20Nicoletti
Victim
George de Mohrenschildt (sometimes known as Baron de Mohrenschildt, although actually he was descended from the Baron Hilienfelt)
Cause of Death
Shotgun blast
Official Verdict