The JFK Assassination

Jim Vassilakos (jimv@uia.net)

At the risk of wasting paper and ink on such bizarreness, I decided to follow-up my conspiracy-related article of issue #327 with
another conspiracy-related article. My apologies to those who find this exceedingly silly. At the very least, perhaps you might
find it entertaining to point fingers and call me a nut. Lord knows, I surely deserve it.
What follows is a little piece I wrote for a dude I met in a bar in Taipei. He was one of these well-traveled Americans you
sometimes meet while vacationing abroad, and between sips of an over-priced Long Island, I got his email address and promised
to continue our scintillating conversation. While I was leaving, he said I should remember to ask him about the JFK
assassination if I wanted to hear the "real scoop" on what happened. Never one to miss out on a history lesson, I sent him the
following theory, but have thus far not heard back. Not wishing to waste a good theory, and bearing down on a submission
deadline, I figured I'd inflict this on all of you. So without further ado, here's the JFK assassination in eight queasy acts.

Act 1: Pissing off the Mafia
It's 1960. The Kennedy vs Nixon
fight is on. Kennedy is easily the
sunnier of the two candidates, and
he's a bit of war hero to boot.
However, he's got no foreign
policy experience, and his father,
Joe, was a Nazi sympathizer who
used to run liquor during
prohibition and who made
millions swindling the stock
market while, almost
inconsequentially, playing a small
role in the advent of the
Depression. The election is gonna
be close, and Joe decides to help
his son out by reaching back to his
old Chicago mob contacts to see if
things can't be rigged just a wee
bit (actually, this part is a story in
itself and is likely more
convoluted that I'm making it
appear).
Well, things are rigged just a
wee bit, and John wins by the skin
of his teeth. Now he owes the
Chicago mob a favor. Instead of going
easy on crime, however, he puts Bobby
(RFK) up as attorney general, who
quickly proves to be the most
aggressive A.G. the country ever had
when it comes to shutting down
organized crime. The Chicago mob
(Giancana) and it's affiliate, the
Teamsters Union (Hoffa), is rightly
pissed, and Joe's contacts tell him to talk
to his sons and try to get them to listen
to reason. Joe does talk to them but ends
up getting into a shouting match with
Bobby who isn't about to budge no
matter what his father says (again, the
story here is more complex, as prior to
JFK's election as president, Joe does get
Bobby to resign from a congressional
committee which is going after
organized crime, however, once JFK is
elected president, the mafia-vote is no
longer needed). Joe storms away,
unable to dissuade Bobby from his
course, and he is soon to brought down
by a stroke (1961), ending his influence
both with the Mob/Mafia as well as
with his sons.
Act 2: Pissing off the CIA & the
Military Establishment
After Castro overthrows Batista in
Cuba, not only does the mob lose it's
lucrative businesses in Havana, but the
U.S. is faced w/ a communist
dictatorship on its doorstep. The CIA
comes up with several plans to
assassinate Castro (Project Mongoose),
in one case using a mafia hitman to do
the actual deed (the CIA & mafia have a
long-standing relationship dating back
to WW2, i.e. before the CIA
was actually formed). JFK
approves the general effort,
however, several bungled
attempts later, the CIA
finally arm-twists JFK into
the Bay of Pigs invasion (I'm
not entirely clear on what led
up to this). Giancana sees all
of this as a genuine attempt
on the part of JFK to repay
his debt to the mob, however,
the whole thing is bungled,
as usual, and the ultimate
bungle is that JFK refuses to
lend air support when things
go sour, allowing the whole
thing to go down as a big
mistake. Many Cuban
ex-patriot freedom fighters
who have been trained by the
CIA end up rotting in
Castro's jails as a result.
Many will be confined for
decades, some for the
remainder of their lives.
Not only is the mob-debt
not repaid, but many folks in the CIA
and in the military feel betrayed by
Kennedy. Meanwhile, he's furious with
them for putting him into the ridiculous
position of launching a covert invasion.
To compound the failure, Castro calls
on the Soviets for military aid, leading
to the cuban missile crisis, and while the
public views Kennedy as a hero for the
successful blockade of Cuba, the CIA
(as well as some of the top brass in the
military) views him as an idiot who
could have averted the entire episode if
only he'd listened to his advisors in the
first place rather than strand the real
heroes on the beaches of Cuba.
Furthermore, they see the view the
Kruschev-Kennedy deal (in October
1962 Kennedy and Kruschev made a
deal that the Soviets would not supply
Cuba with nukes, and in return, we'd
take our nukes out of Turkey AND that
we'd take no action whatsoever against
Cuba or the Castro regime) as nothing
more than a stop-gap, and feel that
Cuba will always remain a threat for as
long as Castro remains in power.
Kennedy's inability to squash his threat
shows his own weakness as a President,
and many in the military come to feel
that he is too weak and morally
undisciplined to be the leader of the free
world.
Of course, at this time, it was not
known that the soviets had equipped
their Cuban detachments with tactical
(i.e. battlefield) nukes. If we had
invaded, as the military brass
unanimously wanted to do, the Sovs
would have nuked our army while it
was landing, and this would have led to
a nuclear war between us and the
USSR. It is somewhat of a miracle that
a nuclear war didn't occur in 1963, but
at that time, the military brass not only
thought a military confrontation with
the soviets was ultimately inevitable,
but they also believed that a nuclear war
would be survivable and that the nation
would endure. Fortunately, almost
miraculously, these things didn't
happen.
Things continued to deteriorate from
there. While the CIA and military
planners viewed Vietnam as the
linchpin to the expansion of
communism and Soviet influence in
southeast asia, Kennedy wanted to
disinvolve the United States from the
war, essentially handing Kruschev the
entire subcontinent without a fight.
Furthermore, due to the widening
ideological rift between the White
House and the CIA, Kennedy was
strongly considering the actual
dissolution of the agency. Through their
surveillance of contacts inside the US,
the CIA soon figured this out, and top
people at that agency began to get very
angry and very nervous, not only for
their own positions in the governmental
hierarchy, but also for the country as a
whole.
To get some idea of the degree of
ruthlessness of the CIA & military
establishment, it's worth noting
Operation Northwoods
(abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNew
s/jointchiefs_010501.html) a plan
hatched to commit terrorism against
domestic targets and make it look like
the work of Castro in order to muster
political support for an invasion. If they
were willing to kill random Americans
in order to muster political support,
what wouldn't they be willing to do to a
president who's planning to dissolve the
CIA and thereby cripple the country's
intelligence apparatus?
Act 3: Bobby's Gambit
In an effort to transition some of the
CIA's functions to the White House,
RFK decided to start an intelligence
operation from his own office. This was
called Project Freedom. Of course, he
had JFK's support, who felt he could no
longer trust the CIA. So Bobby began
this operation which endeavored to put
agents into Cuba via legal mechanisms.
There were three purposes behind this:
• So that we could learn more about
the mood of the people on the
streets of Havana and whether or
not they would support a revolution
against Castro.
• So that our agents could conduct a
campaign of sabotage to destroy
pro-Castro assets prior to the
revolution and/or a second Cuban
invasion (there were plans to
launch a second invasion from the
Dominican Republic).
• So that, with some opportunity and
a little luck, Castro might
eventually be assassinated (they
eventually co-opted a high official
in Havana for this purpose).
One of these agents was Lee Harvey
Oswald. He had been put into play by
the CIA some years back and had gone
so far as to live in the USSR for a short
time and to even take a Russian wife.
To further his credentials as a supporter
of Communism, the CIA had him
passing out pro-Castro leaflets on
Intelligence Row in New Orleans (he
was apparently working with Guy
Bannister, an FBI agent, and was
organizing some sort of "Fair Play for
Cuba" committee), where he would no
doubt be spotted by the Russians and
duly catalogued as a possible tool for
their side. The whole thing was so
idiotically conspicuous, however, that
the Russians never did approach. When
Oswald was finally co-opted into RFK's
Project Freedom, it is believed that he
was sent down to Mexico City to
attempt to acquire a visa to Cuba.
It is worth noting at this point that like
any secret project of this type, there was
always the possibility that Project
Freedom would be exposed. To prepare
for such an eventuality, contingency
plans were drawn up, entailing
protocols for secrecy to be followed
should the project ever be
compromised. Worth noting only as a
footnote, some of these protocols were
drawn up, in part, by Alexander Haig
who was then a Lt. Colonel in the
Army, though he would later rise to
General under Nixon, become the
Commander of NATO forces under
Ford, and finally become Secretary of
State under Reagan.
Unfortunately, whatever happened in
Mexico city concerning Oswald is a bit
of a mystery to me. Legend has it that
he banged on the embassy gates trying
to get attention. I've heard a rumor that
he met with a KGB assassin. There are
even photographs which were taken of
some guy who looks nothing like
Oswald, though he apparently claimed
he was Oswald, which in turn has led to
speculation as to whether Oswald even
went to Mexico City or whether this
was all some sort of complicated ruse.
There is so much disinformation, that it
is very hard to sort out truth from
fiction. About all we are left with is
what we believe, though all beliefs are
contain some measure of doubt.
Act 4: Marilyn
Basically, Hoffa and Marcello (mob
boss in New Orleans) and Giancana are
all fed-up. RFK's campaign against the
teamster boss and organized crime is
taking a toll. These guys are being tailed
by the FBI constantly, and they find it
pretty annoying. It's clear that RFK
wants to put them all away, and it's
clear that he's going to keep at it for as
long as he has the power to do so. Any
attack on him directly is out of the
question, as this would incite the
public's rage, not to mention that of the
president. So they decide to discredit
him and knock him politically
off-balance.
Giancana uses what contacts he has in
show business (which include Sinatra
who has already been declared persona
non-grata at the White House due to his
mob connections despite having been a
friend of JFK) to get to Marilyn and
basically say, "Look, these two
Kennedy brothers have been fucking
the shit out of you, and they're using
you as a toy. If you want to get even,
just go to the press. It'll destroy them
politically and boost your celebrity all
in the same instant." (I'm speculating
here. It's all reasonable, but I have no
idea if Giancana actually pulled her
strings.) Marilyn decides to do just that,
and soon Giancana finds out when
Bobby is planning his late night visit of
04-Aug-1962.
Now, whether Bobby and his people
killed her (see "The Marilyn Files" by
that loon, Robert Slatzer), or whether
she's killed by Giancana (see "Double
Cross" by Chuck Giancana), hoping
suspicion would turn toward RFK, I
have no idea. But it wasn't a suicide.
The autopsy evidence points toward
homicide, as do her personal
circumstances.
In any case, the whole thing was a
failure from Giancana's standpoint,
because suspicion didn't turn toward the
Kennedy brothers. Not only does her
red diary conveniently disappear
(assuming it ever really existed), but
Eunice Murray, her housekeeper, was
busy tidying up the crime scene and
WASHING MARILYN'S SHEETS
when the police arrived. Her and
Greenson had even moved the corpse
(which would explain the peaceful
position it was in when the police
came). Was the housekeeper, who was
hired in 1961, just trying to neaten up so
that the cops wouldn't find Marilyn
soaked in her own vomit? Or was she
really working for someone else? And
who the hell was Greenson really
working for? As a psychiatrist, he
should know well enough to leave a
dead body alone for the police.
Act 5: The Assassination
At some point in all this, you have to
simply come up with a theory on what
actually happened. I finally
semi-subscribed to this idea, which was
put out in a mini-series for Television
called, simply enough, "The Men Who
Killed Kennedy" (and which is still
available on DVD though amazon.com)
and which was the work of British
producer Nigel Turner. This work has
been soundly criticized from several
corners, however, the leads/theory
developed by writer/researcher Steve
Rivele, which I'm about to tell you
about, remain tantalizing. For a more
thorough discussion of his theory and
the criticism which he has received, see
http://members.optushome.com.au/tnorth
In any case, the theory goes like this:
With the Kennedy brothers still
politically intact in a post-Marilyn
world, Hoffa becomes even more
agitated and pleads with Marcello and
Giancana that something has to be
done. They finally decide that the only
way to fix things is to kill JFK. "Chop
the head off the dog and his tail will
stop wagging."
So Carlos Marcello places a contract
on JFK via Santos Trafficante, Jr. who
in turn passes it along to Antwan
Givinee, the leader of the corsican
mafia in Marseilles (as an interesting
sidenote, Givinee had a relationship w/
the OSS/CIA dating back to 1943).
They're basically looking for a group of
shooters to kill JFK in a fashion similar
to that employed by the Chicago mob in
1933 in Miami, when they killed Anton
Cermak, then mayor of Chicago. He
was in an open-top motorcade with
FDR at the time he was shot. However,
because they are fully aware of Project
Freedom, they want to make some
special stipulations regarding the
assassins:
• They have to be white (due to the
assassination being planned to
occur somewhere in the American
south), hence nobody from beirut
or hong kong, which were also
places to hire killer aside from the
mafia.
• They need to be highly experienced
(this goes without saying).
• Must NOT be tied to American
mafia, nor known to police (i.e.
they certainly can't be Americans).
• Must be counted on not to talk to
police if caught (a hard thing to
guarantee... basically these guys
have to have done enough bad
things to prefer death over capture).
Paul Mondulloni, a gangster in
Marseilles, is put in charge of the
logistics and organization of the plot.
For many years he was the liaison
between the Givinee family and Santos
Trafficante of the American mafia. He
had run the corsican casinos in Havana
before Castro came to power and had
established the liaison with Trafficante
then. They continued this liaison after
Castro threw out the corsicans, and they
moved to Montreal to establish a heroin
smuggling outpost there. When you
think of the "french connection", this
guy is one of the main players to keep
in mind.
I don't know the names of all the
assassins who were hired, but one of
them was probably Lucien Sarti. Aside
from trafficking narcotics during the
1960s, he was also known as one of the
top contract assassins in the world. He
was thought to be a little reckless by
those who worked with him, but he had
a penchant for wearing disguises (such
as a police uniform) as well as using
explosive munitions.
In the fall of 1963 the assassins were
flown from Marseilles to Mexico City,
and spent 3-4 weeks there at the house
of a contact. I don't know whether or
not they would have been there at the
same time as Oswald. They were then
driven to the US border at Brownsville,
Texas where they used Italian passports
to cross and then met with a
representative of the Chicago Mafia
who they spoke to in Italian. They were
then driven to Dallas and put up in a
safe house so as not to leave any hotel
records. They spent several days taking
photographs of Dealey Plaza and
arranged the crossfire plan.
After the job, the assassins stayed for
about ten days in Dallas to let things
cool down. Then they were flown by
private plane to Montreal where they
were paid in heroin. According to one
source (Christian David, a drug
smuggler), they later converted their
heroin into cash in Buenos Aries with
the help of a guy named Michele Nicoli
who didn't know anything of the plot
and had a reputation for doing
conversions without asking any
annoying questions. Whether or not
Christian David can be trusted as a
source for all this is an open debate.
There are those in law enforcement who
swear that he never gives false
evidence, and many of his statements
have checked out, but the guy was a
drug smuggler, and he was trying to
work a deal for himself.
Act 6: The Cover-Up
As one might expect, this is the most
interesting and the most convoluted part
of the whole ordeal. However, taking
into account a few seemingly minor
details, there are two things we can
probably infer.
• There were lots of low-level
informers and CIA operatives who
had more allegiance to the Mafia
 than the CIA, mainly for monetary
and historical reasons. The Mafia
pays a hell of a lot more than
government work, and many
recruits are already more than
knee-deep in crime when their
country calls on them. Hence, it's
likely that the Mafia knew about
Project Freedom.
• Because Oswald was working
under RFK's Project Freedom, he
made an ideal patsy, because once
his identity would be known by the
attorney general and those working
with him under Project Freedom,
this section of the Washington
establishment would have to step in
under the contingency plans drawn
by Lt. Col. Haig and others in order
to keep Project Freedom from
becoming generally known by the
public, and hence by Cuba & the
USSR.
Hence, the Secret Service immediately
lays claim to Kennedy's body, and it is
flown to Bethesda for an autopsy, the
results of which are never released
(although they did produce a great fake
autopsy report). This, of course, cut out
the doctors at Parkland hospital in
Dallas.
Furthermore, the FBI on direct orders
from Hoover, quickly requisitions all
the physical evidence, essentially
cutting out Jesse Curry's Dallas Police
Department.
With no body and no physical
evidence, the case is pretty much
closed, except, of course, for one small
detail. Oswald.
Act 7: Jack Ruby
Jack Ruby has a pretty interesting
history. He was once a runner for Al
Capone in Chicago and based his life
around gambling, narcotics, and
prostitution. He ran the Carousel Club
in Dallas, which was but one in a long
string of unsuccessful nightclubs. He
swam every morning in the pool at his
apartment, and in the months prior to
the assassination, his calls to
well-connected mob figures had
increased 10-20 fold, a pattern which
had begun in late april w/ the
announcement of JFK's intended visit to
Dallas.
According to journalist Seth Kantor,
in the weeks preceding the
assassination, Ruby had visits from mob
figures he had not seen in 20 years. In
May of 1963, Ruby traveled to New
Orleans to negotiate with Harold
Tannenbaum in order to get one or
more strippers for his club. He recruited
a red-haired stripper by the name of
Jada who worked at a club owned by
New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos
Marcello, who was targeted by Robert
Kennedy and who had sworn
vengeance. Of course, we don't need to
go into that again.
In any case, it seems possible that
Jack may have been up to his eyeballs
in debt to the mob. At least, that's how I
figure it. They were keeping him afloat
with his two-bit nightclubs, and this was
his way to repay the favor. It was a hell
of a way to repay the favor, but there
you have it. He knows that if he doesn't,
something much worse could be in
store. So, under mysterious
circumstances, he somehow gains
access to the Dallas City Jail's briefing
room where Oswald is being questioned
by reporters. He has a gun and he's
suppose to do it there, but he chickens
out. Thirty-six hours and a couple
threats later, he somehow, again
mysteriously, gains access to the
parking garage where Oswald is to be
transferred from jail.
Oswald is being escorted through the
garage by Jim Leavelle and LC Graves,
and there he is shot once by Ruby. Jim
& LC got the all clear signal before the
car was completely in place, and this
allowed Jack Ruby to make his move.
Funny how these things just work out,
eh? Doctors say he died in the operating
room at 1:07pm, however, he appears to
have lost consciousness in the
ambulance on the way to the hospital.
So anyway, Ruby goes to prison and
stays in a cell overlooking Dealey Plaza
for the next two and a half years before
he dies of cancer. Wouldn't it be a hoot
if, somehow, he already knew he had
cancer, and just figured what the hell.
Act 8: Unanswered Questions
This theory provides a decent basis for
everything that happened, the
assassination, the cover-up, and Jack
Ruby, but it still leaves a lot of loose
strings. For instance, we still don't know
who Oswald really was or why this
ex-military, probable-CIA guy was
working in the book depository in the
first place.
We don't really know who killed
officer J.D. Tippit in the Oak Cliff area
three miles from downtown only 45
minutes after the assassination. Oswald
was blamed, but if he did it, then why?
We don't know why Oswald ran into a
theater without paying admission. Why
not simply pay like everyone else and
avoid attracting any undue attention?
We don't know if Oswald really met
with a KGB assassin in Mexico City, or
if this is just a baseless rumor. We don't
even know with certainty that he was in
Mexico City.
We don't know what he was carrying
to work in the brown wrapping on the
day of the assassination. He told a
friend that it was curtain rods, but could
it have been a broken down,
high-powered rifle as authorities later
concluded? Was he taking it there for
somebody else to use or was he one of
the shooters? Keep in mind, this is a
guy who had been a marine, who had a
high security clearance, and who had
even tracked U2 flights over Russia.
Oswald was not some idiot, even if he
tried to come across that way once he
was caught.
It seems blindingly obvious that he
must have been in on the hit in some
manner, but to what extent? Of course,
we never found out. Jack Ruby killed
him for the purpose of "sparing Jackie
the agony of the trial." Talk about
chivalry.
There's just an awful lot which this
theory, as good as it sounds, doesn't
even attempt to answer.
In conclusion, this is just a weird
theory. I'd be curious to hear the
opinions of others more schooled in
history and politics than myself. That
probably includes just about everyone
reading this. I recall being at a game at
Lee's house, and afterward the topic of
conversation somehow turned to
history, and I found myself a novice in a
room full of professors. So feel free to
chime in and lend what ideas you have,
that is assuming you feel that
conspiracy theories are a worthy topic
for an RPG-oriented APA.