by Gus Russo
Still other letters, like that from Ernesto Luna, were sent directly to Bobby. On January 17, 1964, Luna wrote RFK that he was in Mexico City at the time of Oswald’s visit, and that he knew Oswald had spent time in the Tapachula, Mexico home of Victor Cohen, a pro-Castro agent and former Castro treasurer.30
In the face of these disquieting revelations, is it reasonable to conclude that RFK’s infamous wrath demanded no answers? In fact, RFK’s alleged “disinterest” was just another fiction. Behind the scenes, he was demanding answers.
Bobby’s Private Investigations
In the assassination’s immediate aftermath, before Lee Oswald’s New Orleans/pro-Castro connections were revealed, Bobby suspected that the Chicago mob had carried out a vendetta against the president. Early in the evening of November 22, Bobby called a trusted National Labor Relations Board member—Julius Draznin—then living in Sam Giancana’s Chicago. Knowing that Draznin had sources in “the outfit,” Bobby asked him to see what they knew, and report back to Bobby directly. In four days, Bobby had his preliminary answer.
“There’s nothing here,” Draznin told Bobby, formalizing his conclusion in a memo to Bobby dated November 26, 1963. After several more weeks of checking, Draznin was convinced the mob played no role, either in Kennedy’s or Oswald’s murder. Draznin recently told writer Seymour Hersh, “I picked up nothing at all tying it to the Chicago mob.”31 Regarding Ruby, Draznin says, “Ruby was intent on taking care of the guy who killed his beloved president. I believe it to this day. I told that to Bobby face-to-face, in a private meeting.”32
Another glimpse of Bobby’s private inquiry came from Dallas itself. After thirty years of silence, Al Maddox, Deputy Sheriff of Dallas County, recently related the following episode:
I saw Robert Kennedy [a couple of weeks] after the assassination [in Dallas]. I drove Sheriff Bill Decker to the Adolphus Hotel and went to the front door. When the door swung open, Robert Kennedy was standing there. Decker told me, ‘You didn’t see anything,’ and I didn’t see anything.33
According to Maddox, Decker verified the obvious—that the mysterious visitor was indeed Bobby Kennedy. “At that time, Decker ran the city of Dallas,” recalls Maddox, “and if he told you to jump off a ten-story building, you jumped. . . I never did read about it [Bobby’s visit] in the papers and no one knew anything about it. . . It was never discussed after that.”
FBI agent Vincent Drain verified that RFK indeed visited Dallas on a number of occasions before and after the assassination. Drain was the agent assigned to pick up and drop off the Attorney General at Dallas’ Love Field airport whenever he came into town. “He used to like being dropped off at the Executive Inn [one mile from the airport] and jog to Love Field.”34 Drain, however, claimed to know of no “secret” RFK visits. Precisely why Bobby visited Dallas is not known.35
After the mob theory died, all that was left, it seems, was the possibility that the “Cuba Project” attempts on Castro’s life had backfired. It may have been too difficult for Bobby to contemplate, and certainly not something he would have wanted JFK’s adoring public to know.
The question of Bobby’s “private” interest in the assassination will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever resolve. However, it is now clear that his abiding interest in looking out for his brother’s interests continued unabated throughout the 1960’s. That protection occasionally bordered on the macabre.
Bobby Kennedy and The Mystery of the President’s Missing Brain
After Robert Kennedy’s own murder in 1968, the Kennedy family’s veil of secrecy was pulled back ever so slightly. Under the aegis of family attorney Burke Marshall, qualified members of the medical establishment, interested in scholarly review, were occasionally granted access to John Kennedy’s autopsy materials. One such professional made front-page news in 1972 when he emerged from the National Archives and announced that President Kennedy’s brain was missing. The clear implication (not discouraged by this doctor) was that the brain was removed in order to prevent an accurate tracking of the wounds—tracks that might lead to the infamous grassy knoll.36
The doctor’s statements further inflamed public opinion about the government and completely misdirected those interested in learning the truth. The truth, in this instance had nothing to do with a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. It had everything to do with Bobby’s unceasing devotion to his brother. But the result was the same—it continued to feed the fires of domestic-based rumors and theories about possible assassination conspiracies.
In point of fact, staffers at the National Archives had known since October 1966 that the President’s brain was missing. However, because they had a good idea of what had happened to it—a benign explanation, it turns out—they decided against making it public, fearful of inciting just the kind of public outcry that occurred in 1972. What follows is the actual chronology of events that generated the controversy, compiled using the most recent releases of House Committee interviews and interviews by the author.37
On the night of the assassination, autopsist James Humes gave the President’s brain and tissue slides to Kennedy’s personal physician, Admiral George Burkley. Humes later said, “He (Burkley) told me that the Kennedy family wanted to inter the brain with the President’s body. I don’t know what happened to the brain, but I do know that Admiral Burkley was an honorable man.”38 Boswell agreed, saying, “I believe that it was buried with the body. . . I personally handed it over to Dr. Burkley and he told me that the family intended to bury it with the body. I believe Admiral Burkley.”39
Two weeks later, the brain, however, by now fixed in formalin, was re-examined by Humes, and returned to Burkley.40 Burkley then transferred it for storage to the Secret Service locker at the Executive Office Building, under the custody of Secret Service Agent Robert Bouck. There it remained for the next two and one-half years.
On April 22, 1965 Robert Kennedy sent a letter to Dr. Burkley directing him to transfer the material to JFK’s former personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, whose office was by now in the National Archives. The letter also stated that Mrs. Lincoln was being instructed that the material was not to be released to anyone without the written permission of Robert Kennedy.
Three days later, Kennedy family attorney Burke Marshall, acting as executor of John Kennedy’s estate, relinquished control of the materials to Robert Kennedy. They were then transferred for safekeeping to Mrs. Lincoln in the Archives. An inventory taken at the time indicated that nothing was missing.41
One month later, as Mrs. Lincoln later recalled it to the HSCA, Bobby Kennedy called, saying he was sending over his personal secretary, Angela Novello, along with Presidential archivist Herman Kahn and his deputies to take the trunk away to some undisclosed location. Mrs. Novello was out of town when the HSCA later attempted to interview her. Her attorney told the Committee that she knew nothing about the sequence of events.
In 1994, Mrs. Novello, in a phone interview with the author, said she only recalls moving “some papers,” and to the best of her knowledge these papers were still in the Archives. The next question would have been, “Where in the Archives were these ‘papers’ taken?” At that point, however, Novello abruptly ended the conversation42— again proving that the secretaries of the world are the true keepers of secrets. In Novello’s case, she not only functioned as RFK’s personal secretary, but after his death, assumed the same function for the “ultimate insider,” power attorney Edward Bennett Williams—the man who represented RFK’s longtime nemeses Jimmy Hoffa and Sam Giancana.43
According to Lincoln, Bobby’s driver and personal assistant, Master Sergeant Joseph Giordano, carried off the trunk.44 According to Dr. Burkley, “Giordano moved the material to the JFK Library in Boston and knows something about the brain.”45 Giordano, however, told the HSCA that he did not move it, and had “no knowledge” of what happened to it. He suggested that George Dalton, who also worked for Bobby, might know. Dalton was no stranger to performing “secret” missions for the Kenn
edys—he had transcribed the Oval Office tapes at Bobby’s request (as mentioned in Chapter Fifteen). Neither Dalton nor Giordano would respond to the author’s requests for an interview.46
On November 2, 1965, Public Law 89-318 was enacted. Among other provisions, the law made it clear that the Kennedy autopsy materials were evidence, and that it rightfully belonged to the government. Further, the materials had to be returned within one year of the law’s enactment. At that point, Attorney General Ramsey Clark initiated discussions with Kennedy attorneys, who clearly wanted to stall Clark indefinitely.
By the fall of 1966, as the deadline neared, Clark approached Bobby Kennedy directly for the materials. Kennedy was not sympathetic to the government’s position. Heated discussions ensued with family lawyer Burke Marshall. On October 29, 1966, an agreement was reached whereby the Kennedys donated the trunk back to the Archives. Deputy Archivist Trudy Peterson witnessed the material’s return to the building, and suggested that Bobby, Novello, et al, had removed it from the building in May 1965 to a location Robert Kennedy himself designated.
National Archives General Counsel, Harry Van Cleve, receiving the transferred trunk, took an inventory and became the first person to discover that JFK’s brain and other “gross material” were missing. Concluding that the Kennedy family had taken possession of the material, Van Cleve later noted that “we were borrowing trouble in exploring it any further.”47 He further cautioned against approaching Joseph Giordano.48
There is very little doubt that Robert Kennedy took control of the “missing” material. This was the finding of the HSCA, as well as many of the Archive employees. The only mystery remaining is exactly how Bobby disposed of the material. And even that mystery is finally starting to fade.
In 1976, RFK’s former press aide, Frank Mankiewicz, told HSCA Counsel Blakey he thought that the “President’s brain is in the grave. LBJ, Ted, Bobby, and maybe McNamara buried it when the body was transferred. Ted seemed to confirm it later.”49
JFK’s body was, in fact, reinterred in Arlington in March 1967, upon completion of a memorial structure.50 HSCA Chief Investigator Robert Tanenbaum related to the author a comment that Mankiewicz allegedly made to him in 1978—that RFK, in an earlier phone call, said that the brain “is being put back in the coffin. Do not leak this or you’ll be in big trouble.”51 Mankiewicz denies saying this, but acknowledges being on guard at the perimeter for the reinterment.52 Evelyn Lincoln told the Committee that she would continue to investigate the matter on her own.
In 1992, in a final attempt to determine the whereabouts of the material, the author enlisted a close friend who is also a confidante of Mrs. Lincoln to put the question to her: After she told the HSCA that she would conduct further inquiries into the matter, did she indeed learn anything about the disposition of the President’s brain? According to the intermediary, Mrs. Lincoln became quiet, looked her friend in the eyes, and said simply, “It’s where it belongs.”
Johnson and Cuba
“People just don’t realize how conservative Lyndon really is. There are going to be a lot of changes.”
—Robert Kennedy to Ed Guthman, one hour after the assassination53
“Lyndon Johnson says he doesn’t want to hear another thing about those goddamn Cubans.”
—E. Howard Hunt to “Harry” Williams, shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy54
“If Jack Kennedy had lived, I can assure you we would have gotten rid of Castro by last Christmas. Unfortunately, the new President isn’t as gung-ho on fighting Castro as Kennedy was.”
—Des FitzGerald, March 196455
The assassination of President Kennedy, long considered an act of a disturbed man with no clear political motive, wrought major policy changes, just as many had predicted. On November 23, 1963, one day after the Dallas tragedy, CIA headquarters cabled JM/WAVE chief Ted Shackley, ordering, “Postpone [sabotage] ops indefinitely. Rescheduling will depend upon consultations with appropriate officials.” The appropriate officials consisted of Lyndon Johnson and his administration.56
Soon after the assassination, Johnson directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to formulate new policy recommendations for Cuba. On March 21, 1964, the Kennedy-appointed JCS proposed OPERATION SQUARE DANCE, which called for the total destruction of Cuba’s sugar crop. The result would have been not only the collapse of the Castro regime, but untold hardship on the general Cuban population. Johnson refused to back the proposal.57
On April 7, 1964, five months after the assassination, President Johnson discontinued all sabotage and raids against Cuba. One CIA officer who was present at that Special Group meeting remembered Johnson saying, “Enough is enough.” The OPLAN 380-63 coup plans were allowed to die a natural death, with absolutely no misgivings from the Johnson White House.
The massive JM/WAVE CIA station in Florida was eventually disbanded, and AM/LASH was put out to pasture. The only known CIA objection to these changes was from the Kennedy-appointed Director, John McCone, who complained about the sabotage cutoff in an April 1964 memo, the day after Johnson’s major policy shift. As David Corn writes, McCone knew that Johnson was “throwing in the towel.” Nowhere else is there evidence that any other CIA official objected to these changes. In fact, many agents were relieved that the project had ended.
In Central America, Artime’s camps were likewise disbanded. Nilo Messer, Artime’s secretary, quotes Artime as saying, “This is the end for us.”58 Raphael Quintero, another Artime aide and RFK confidante, recently stated, “We were just really getting started with our [Central American] operation when President Kennedy got assassinated. After that, there were big problems.”59 Bobby Kennedy echoed the lament, when he later commented about the Cuba Project, “Since November [1963], we haven’t really done anything.”60 Artime’s Chief of Naval Operations for the Central American stratagem, Rene Cancio, agrees, saying, “I’m almost sure that the Central American project ended because Kennedy died and Johnson assumed power. And that project was not Johnson’s idea. It was Kennedy’s.”61
General Alexander Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State, and one of the coordinators of Bobby Kennedy’s Cuban Coordinating Committee, recently stated, “When John Kennedy was killed—and I’m not so sure that [the Cuba policy] didn’t have a role in that as well—clearly everything stopped.” Haig continued, “But I know that until the day he died, President Johnson was convinced that Castro retaliated by assassinating President Kennedy—retaliated against those covert operations.”62
Bobby’s protection of his brother’s legacy would succeed for three years following the assassination. However, as a consequence of Bobby’s vicious feud with Lyndon Johnson, and the political ambitions of a New Orleans District Attorney, the dam of concealment threatened to break in 1967.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ASSAULT ON CAMELOT
In 1964, the Warren Commission produced a report with numerous loose strings and a single conclusion—that Oswald, a “lone nut,” was President Kennedy’s sole assassin, and that he lacked a clear motive. And that conclusion might have remained in the history books, undisturbed, had FBI director J. Edgar Hoover not returned to the scene on a seemingly unrelated matter.
In the spring of 1966, to assist in an ongoing investigation, Hoover wanted to put a spy inside Los Angeles’ Mafia syndicate. The FBI director had learned— through immigration records—that Johnny Rosselli, a member of the Los Angeles mob, was an illegal alien living in the United States under a false identity.1
Ever the resourceful purveyor of intelligence, Hoover dangled the threat of deportation above Rosselli, reasoning that the mob’s “Mr. Smooth” would see Hoover’s side of the deal and be coerced into turning on his brethren. Rosselli was definitely feeling the heat.
Giancana associate Joe Shimon wisely informed Rosselli that the first “hood” that the Bureau would want Rosselli to turn on would be his longtime friend Sam Giancana. Shimon told Rosselli, “You wouldn’t last twenty minutes” [if you t
alk to the FBI]. Rosselli then turned to his attorney, Edward Bennett Williams, and announced his decision: “Number one, I’m not going to snitch on anybody; number two, I want some way to keep those guys off my back; number three, I want the name of the prick that turned me in.”2
Luckily for Rosselli, he had some leverage. As one of the key participants in the anti-Castro murder plots, Rosselli realized that he held one hell of a trump card. He also remembered that another key player in the plots, Robert Maheu, had escaped prosecution by playing the same card five years earlier.
On May 12, 1966, Rosselli met with his old CIA contact, the former Deputy of Security, Sheffield Edwards. He told Edwards about Hoover’s threat, reminding Edwards in the process that he, Rosselli, knew about a few skeletons in the CIA’s closet. Rosselli also expressed his fear that gangsters would kill him for “talking.”3 Rosselli wanted the CIA to intercede with the FBI on his behalf, as it had for Maheu. Immediately after this meeting, Rosselli visited his old friend William Harvey, the former head of the “Executive Action” program. Retired from the CIA, Bill Harvey then ran a Washington law firm. Over the next five years, Rosselli and Harvey met numerous times. At these sessions, Harvey expressed his “concern that Senator Robert Kennedy knew all about the operation.” Rosselli agreed.4
As a result, the CIA intervened on Rosselli’s behalf with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A CIA memo dated February 26, 1971 admitted that the CIA had initiated contact with INS, and that “the purpose of this effort was to intercede with INS on behalf of Mr. Johnny Rosselli in the action being initiated for deportation.”
But the CIA’s intervention in 1971 was, for Rosselli, too slow in coming. In the meantime, he decided to light a few fires of his own under official Washington. Although he would not divulge all the details, he would give out enough, he hoped, to persuade the CIA to take him seriously. With his well-connected Washington lawyer, Edward Morgan, Rosselli decided to leak his story through two distinct channels.
