Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination
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That was apparently the need for the whole cover-up—they were all involved together: Oswald, Ruby, Ferrie, Banister, Dr. Ochsner, Dr. Sherman—all tied inextricably together in the whole sordid story:
Jack Ruby visited David Ferrie’s apartment one day when Judyth and Lee (Oswald) were there. Ferrie introduced him to Judyth as Sparky Rubenstein. Judyth was surprised that Ferrie briefed Ruby on their bioweapon project. (Why not? They all worked for Marcello.) Ruby recognized Lee, and said that he used to see him at parties when he was a boy.4
In that context, Jack Ruby’s fears for his safety—clearly expressed to Chief Justice Earl Warren—suddenly take on very clear meaning and dire implications:
This means that Jack Ruby knew about Oswald’s connection to the underground medical laboratory when he shot him, and he knew about the cancer cocktail that could be used to silence him as he awaited trial for Oswald’s murder. It is no wonder he wanted to get out of Dallas. And it is no wonder that the Warren Commission did not accept his offer to talk in exchange for safer accommodations.5
As we detailed in a portion of the introductory material in this book—death by medical “accident”—the circumstances related to the injections Ruby received while in Dallas Police custody are cloudy at best. Ruby was visited there by psychiatrist Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West, reportedly a top expert in the CIA’s MKULTRA program, a project involving special drugging and mind-control techniques that included programming individuals to kill.6 When that factor is added to the context that Ruby had also been
1 Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
2 Haslam, Dr. Mary’s Monkey, 328, citing Judyth Baker, Me & Lee.
3 Haslam, Dr. Mary’s Monkey, 335.
4 Ibid, 307, parenthetical comments in original.
5 Ibid, 307
6 Wikipedia, “Louis Jolyon West,” accessed 10 Sept. 2012: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Jolyon_West; Greg Parker, “Jack Ruby Timeline” (note 12), 23 Nov. 2004, The Education Forum, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2342
well-aware of the project to use a type of rapid-onset cancer as a biological weapon, the circumstances become quite suspicious, to say the least:
Jack Ruby told Al Maddox (his Dallas police guard) that he had been injected with cancer cells. Maddox has said that the doctor that gave Ruby injections came from Chicago. Maddox was present at Parkland Hospital when Ruby died of an embolism caused by galloping lung cancer.1
People on both sides of the issue often fail to look at key points and the solution to a puzzle sometimes rests in asking the right questions. The right question is rarely asked regarding the JFK assassination—but here it is:
If you’re planning to shoot Jack Kennedy in the head with high-powered rifles in broad daylight, you’d better spend some time thinking about his brother. His brother is Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General, and he has the power and the resources to come after you. In order to get away with killing Jack, you must neutralize Bobby at the critical moment . . .
The question:
How do you paralyze Bobby at the critical moment?
The answer:
By publicly accusing one of his agents of the crime!2
It has become pretty obvious at this point that Oswald was set-up to “take the fall” for the assassination of President Kennedy, even though he was set up as a component
of the conspiracy.3 In one way or another, he seemed to be connected to all the players in the drama:
Far from being a “lone nut,” Oswald was connected to so many powerful and/or corrupt people that no one wanted him to get into a courtroom and start talking. Not even the Attorney General.4
The perfect patsy. From that perspective, it all makes perfect sense, and that scenario also explains the National Security cover-up that followed the assassination of JFK:
When you see who the players were, and how unwelcome such an investigation would have been to them, you will understand why it was not done.5
1 Haslam, Dr. Mary’s Monkey, 307, parenthetical comments in original.
2 Haslam, Dr. Mary’s Monkey, 344, emphasis in original.
3 Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong, 110-153.
4 Haslam, Dr. Mary’s Monkey, 344.
5 Ibid, 340.
Some of the most important statements related to the JFK assassination suddenly make a lot more sense when looked at freshly and in the new context of:
• A secret laboratory in New Orleans involving Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, and Guy Banister;
• Oswald’s affiliations with U.S. Intelligence and Robert Kennedy’s knowledge of that fact;
• Robert Kennedy’s suspicions concerning the involvement of both Carlos Marcello and Vice President Lyndon Johnson in the assassination.
They’re going to find out about Cuba. They’re going to find out about the guns, find out about New Orleans, find out about everything.—Jack Ruby1
This was spoken to a visitor while Ruby was in jail, but note the fact that these were his real concerns and were much more stressed than the fact that he had even been filmed committing first degree murder inside of a police station!
When I saw the phone records of all the people Jack Ruby was calling before Dallas, before the assassination, it looked like my witness
list for the Senate Rackets Committee.—Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy 2
This was spoken to his Press Secretary.
If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.—FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
This was spoken in response to the question from a friend’s son, “Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald did it?”3
One of your guys did it.—Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy 4
This was spoken telephonically in a phone call he made immediately upon learning that the name of the alleged assassin was “Lee Harvey Oswald”; the call was to his “anti-Castro” group in Florida, verified and
1 Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (University of California Press: 1993), 179: http://www.ctka.net/pr795-ruby.html
2 Anthony Thorne (citing David Talbot, May 24, 2007 interview on Fresh Air, NPR), May 26, 2007, “David Talbot’s New Book Brothers,” The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9824&st=150
3 John Simkin, “Theory: CIA,” Spartacus Educational, accessed 21 Dec 2012: http://www.spartacus
.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKSinvestCIA.htm
4 Richard D. Mahoney, The Kennedy Brothers: The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby (Skyhorse Publishing: 2011), 178.
witnessed by both Harry Ruiz Williams and Haynes Johnson.1 “Robert Kennedy was utterly in control of his emotions when he came on the line and sounded almost studiedly brisk as he said, ‘One of your guys did it.’”2 Historians interpret that remark as meaning that Robert Kennedy “clearly was referring to embittered Cubans deployed by elements in the CIA. Asking (CIA Director) McCone if the CIA was involved in such a way that ‘he could not lie’ suggested that Kennedy thought the CIA operatives were acting at a deniable distance.”3
It is also now known that it was Bobby Kennedy’s very own Attorney General’s Office which actually originated the cover-up, via the memo from Kennedy’s Deputy Attorney General and staunch ally, Nick
Katzenbach.4 That may very well have been the “dark beauty” of
the hijacked “black op” in that it forced the victims into covering up the crime. Thus, the sinister brilliance of the method in which the assassination of President Kennedy took place, also assured its secrecy.
I was one of the two case officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald... we gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba ... I don’t know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro.—David Atlee Phillips, CIA, Director, WHO (Western Hemisphere Operations)
In 1963, Phillips was one of the CIA officers responsible for planning anti-Castro operations. Phillips
had personal knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was known to Phillips as part of the U.S. Intelligence anti-Castro operational apparatus.5
To say that Fabian Escalante was no stranger to complex covert intelligence maneuvers would be quite an understatement. Escalante was head of Cuba’s elite G2 Intelligence unit which oversaw counter-
intelligence at the most complex point of East-West relations. Those complex cat-and-mouse games of the “James Bond world” of counter-intelligence were his specific field of expertise. Escalante summarizes the conclusions of the investigation by Cuban Intelligence:
Oswald was an Intelligence agent of the US—CIA, FBI, military, or all of these, we don’t know. He was manipulated, told he was penetrating a
1 Talbot, Brothers; David Talbot, May 26, 2007, “David Talbot: The Kennedy Family and the Assassination of JFK,” The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index
.php?showtopic=10049
2 Mahoney, The Kennedy Brothers, 178.
3 Ibid.
4 Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong, 128-130.
5 David Atlee Phillips, unpublished manuscript, 1977; Morley, Our Man in Mexico, 238.
group of Cuban agents that wanted to kill Kennedy. But from the very beginning, he was to be the element to blame Cuba.1
• There were two objectives to the plot—to kill Kennedy and to blame Cuba for the crime.2
• We believe Kennedy became an obstacle to US military aggression against Cuba.3
• Not less than fifteen persons took part in the assassination.4
• At the same time, knowing a little about CIA operations, we see how they used the principle of decentralized operations—independent parties with a specific role, to guarantee compartmentalization and to keep it simple.5
Robert Kennedy also told several of his own staff members that he strongly believed Carlos Marcello and other mafia members were responsible for his brother’s death, but that he could do nothing about it. He also harbored a deep sense of guilt, saying that he felt responsible for the tragedy.
• It has been publicly known only since 1992, that Robert Kennedy told a few close advisers that New Orleans Mob Boss Marcello was behind JFK’s assassination, as we confirmed with Kennedy aide Richard Goodwin. Salon received additional confirmation of mafia involvement from Robert Kennedy’s former Press Secretary, Frank Mankiewicz, who conducted a secret investigation of JFK’s death for Robert.6
• Robert Kennedy had a fear that he had somehow gotten his own brother killed, and that his “attempts to prosecute the Mob and to kill Castro backfired in some terrible way.”7
We know that it was a domestic high level political conspiracy that killed the President, and Bobby Kennedy intends to run for President at some point, and when he does, if he succeeds, he will resume the policies of President Kennedy’s—of détente towards the Soviet Union.
—Message from Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy and Kennedy family8
1 Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice, citing interviews with Pierre Salinger (April 3 and 10, 1998) and interview with confidential source (April 14, 1998): http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/12/con05463.html
7 Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice, citing ABCNEWS.com, November 20, 2003, “A Brother’s Pain,” Interview with Evan Thomas: http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/12/con05463.html
8 Talbot, Brothers.
Many other cases should rightfully be investigated, in addition to further investigating the cases we covered. Some of those cases bearing special mention are:
• Mac Wallace was Lyndon Johnson’s “professional assassin of choice”—at least, prior to becoming President.1 After reaching the post of President of the United States, Johnson certainly had more sophisticated means at his disposal for the purpose of “eliminating” his enemies. As Commander-in-Chief, he could direct the darkest aspects of the covert forces of the U.S. intelligence community at his own personal whim. Mac Wallace was then a liability because he “knew where all the bodies were buried”—and, in some cases, probably literally, as well as figuratively. Therefore, the death of Mac Wallace certainly warrants a great deal of examination and, in reality, very little is known about his death and not very much information seems to be available.
• Roger Craig was a Dallas County Deputy Sheriff who swore repeatedly that the rifle he found in the Book Depository building was not the same rifle they framed Oswald with. Craig’s case is fascinating and could fill a book in itself (and should).
1 Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong, 17-23. Douglas Caddy, Esq., “Letter to Mr. Stephen S. Trott, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice,” August 9, 1984, The Estes Documents: http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm
This was in a message sent to Moscow from the Kennedy family, via special envoy, right after the assassination. As author David Talbot observed: “this is the height of the Cold War, and at this point it indicates that Bobby Kennedy and the family are placing more trust in the Soviet government than in their own government.”1
If the American people knew the truth about Dallas, there would be blood in the streets.2
—Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
This was spoken to an old family friend, in the context that his brother had been the victim of a domestic political conspiracy.3
1 Talbot, Brothers; Anthony Thorne (citing David Talbot, May 24, 2007 interview on Fresh Air, NPR), May 26, 2007, “David Talbot’s New Book Brothers,” The Education Forum: http://educationforum
.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9824&st=150
2 Talbot, Brothers.
3 Talbot, Brothers; David Talbot, May 26, 2007, “David Talbot: The Kennedy Family and the Assassination of JFK,” The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index
.php?showtopic=10049
• Dallas Police Officer Roscoe White was apparently part of the same Dallas Police Department Tactical Team of which J. D. Tippit was a member. That Dallas Police Department unit had substantial liaison with U.S. Military Intelligence and operated as support for sensitive intel operations. White also served at the Atsugi Air Base with Lee Harvey Oswald and also knew Jack Ruby very well. Yet the story from family members that he was directly involved in the assassination of President Kennedy does not appear to be authentic.
A member of the Military Intelligence team sent to Dallas on November 22, to attempt to abort the assassination of President Kennedy, had this dramatic observation regarding Dallas Police Officers J. D. Tippit and Roscoe White. It was a “game-changer” piece of intelligence that hardly anybody who investigated the case actually knew:
Tippit and White both had Military intel and CIA fingerprints, all over Dallas and Fort Worth, before the assassination of Kennedy. They both knew about the “Abort Team,” and why and how they were dispatched to Dallas that day.1
• Cliff Carter has been included by some researchers but, stated simply, there is no evidence he was murdered—though he clearly seems linked to the assassination. Carter reportedly died of pneumonia in September of 1971 when—seriously, folks, we kid you not—it was reported that no penicillin could be found in time . . . in Washington, D.C.! That was reported as the cause of death.2 Others may, no doubt, dispute that claim. And if they do, we say, “Fine.” Maybe his death has not been proven suspicious, but his career certainly was. As Lyndon Johnson’s “hatchet man,” Cliff Carter was reportedly involved in a lot of dirty work, including arranging murders by hitman Mac Wallace and other acts which covered the many trails leading to Lyndon Johnson, the man who became President of the United States as a result of the JFK assassination.3
There is virtually no doubt at this point that individuals like John Martino and David Morales were clearly involved—to some extent—in the planning and operational support of the JFK assassination, yet very little is actually
known about the circumstances of their deaths.
Regarding David Morales, historian John Simkin wrote that “Morales began to worry about his own health during the HSCA investigations.” He “made his last trip to Washington in early May, 1978.” Then—after a friend told him that he wasn’t looking well—Morales replied:
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Ever since I left Washington I haven’t been feeling very comfortable.4
1 William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, Email to author, 18 Sept 2012
2 Penn Jones, Jr., “Disappearing Witnesses,” Jan 1984, The Rebel magazine: http://www.maebrussell.com/Disappearing%20Witnesses/Disappearing%20Witnesses.html
3 Douglas Caddy, Esq., “Letter to Mr. Stephen S. Trott, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice,” August 9, 1984, The Estes Documents: http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm
4 John Simkin, “David Sánchez Morales: Biography,” Spartacus Educational, accessed 11 Dec. 2012: http://www
.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmorales.htm
The same friend found out that Morales wound up in the hospital that night, so the next morning, he went to see him.
They wouldn’t let anyone in. They had his room surrounded by sheriff’s deputies.
That same day, Morales was taken off life support and died. There was no autopsy.1
• John Martino apparently died of natural causes. But before dying, he admitted his involvement in the JFK assassination to several people and clearly had established foreknowledge that it was going to happen. Don’t think so? Here’s what he told his wife on the morning of November 22: