Salon: The man who solved the Kennedy assassination

[Karmadillo]

Interesting. Worth reading the entire article to see Blakey's comments on possible involvment by CIA rogue agents. NOTE: You'll need to sit through a brief ad for a day pass if you don't have a subscription.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/22/conspiracy/index.html

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But if moonstruck conspiracy-weavers like Stone and McClellan give JFK conspiracy research a bad name, that doesn't mean the Warren Commission was right. As even its most resolute defenders -- such as Gerald Posner, author of the 1993 bestseller "Case Closed" -- concede, the distinguished panel headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was denied key pieces of the puzzle by the FBI and the CIA. And the most important pieces of information related to the CIA/Mafia plot against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the illegal FBI surveillance of Mafia leaders, which revealed a widespread and murderous hostility toward President Kennedy and his crime-busting brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The Warren panel did have a neon-bright sign pointing to the Mafia right before its eyes -- Jack Ruby, the Mob-connected nightclub owner who murdered Oswald on national television -- but the commission inexplicably decided not to pursue this angle. Commission investigators credulously accepted the word of a Chicago hood named Lenny Patrick that Ruby had no underworld ties, when in fact it was Patrick himself who had run Ruby out of town for stepping on his gambling turf.

Bobby Kennedy was not so credulous. Kennedy, who according to his biographer Evan Thomas "regarded the Warren Commission as a public relations exercise to reassure the public," immediately turned his suspicions on the Mafia, CIA, and anti-Castro Cubans after his brother's murder. He would accept the solemn word of fellow Irish Catholic John McCone, the CIA director, that the agency had nothing to do with the crime. But he would go to his grave in 1968 suspecting that JFK was the victim of a plot, and his thoughts lingered darkly on the lords of the underworld. In the years after JFK's assassination, as Bobby was elected to the Senate from New York in 1964 and then ran for president in 1968, he would launch more than one of his old Mafia-hunting Justice Department associates on a search for the truth, including Walter Sheridan and Ed Guthman, and even his press secretary Frank Mankiewicz.

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"There's no doubt that Oswald fired the fatal shots, all the forensic evidence points to it, and his conduct is consistent with it," said Blakey. "I'm a former federal prosecutor and I could have convicted him with no problem. But then 48 hours later, Oswald himself is shot by Ruby -- and then Ruby becomes a major factor."

Blakey believes that Oswald was supposed to be silenced by the second shooter as he emerged from the Book Depository in police custody -- but he eluded both the police and his executioner, who was likely one of Trafficante's Cuban henchmen. So the Mafia conspirators behind the assassination drafted Ruby to do the job. "Ruby was always a wannabe around organized crime. He knew the Mob leaders in Dallas, Joe Civello and Joe Campisi, both of whom were connected to Marcello. The night before the assassination, Ruby met with Campisi" -- who later visited him in jail.

more...

[buycitgo]

1. if Blakey's the one who "solved" the assassination......

it's not worth wasting the time to get into Salon Premium, believe me.

his whole deal is that the mob was behind the hit.

while Oswald had ties to Carlos Marcello (via his uncle, IIRC), his ties to CIA are much more relevant....see Oswald and the CIA by John Newman.

that committee, among other things, interviewed Parkland doctors at the scene, then ignored their testimony, while mischaracterizing it in the committe report (LYING about the entrance vs. exit wound in Kennedy's throat, for example)

if this story is about somebody else, who is it, please?

Blakey is a ringer of the highest order, put in charge of the committee in a power play for a specific purpose, when it became obvious that they were going to go after the CIA/FBI/DIA, etc.

read Gaetan Fonzi's book, The Last Investigation, for more on this. he was one of the honest investigators who was thwarted at almost every turn.

see the section on his direct knowledge of George de Mohrenschildt's
"suicide" (just before his testimony), for one example

the mafia obviously had some connection (Ruby, Ferry, anti-Castro Cuban gunrunners, possible shooters), but they were more ancillary to the thrust of the plot.

What plot, you say?

good question. that's about as far as I can figure things.

too much mis/disinfo out there to slog through it all.

you can be sure not to go wrong, though, if you disbelieve what any govt-sponsored shill has to say about whatever happened

[MrPrax]

2. Yeah the Mob thing...

I always figured the Marcello angle was built up as disinformation to attack Garrison anyhow.

Marcello's home base was Orleans (big daddy in the big easy) and the thing on Garrison was he was 'grandstanding' on the JFK trial in order to avoid prosecuting organized crime.

Suggesting he was perhaps on the take...

Oswald has 'spook' written all over him and that would seem to be the prime conduit to view all the activities required to execute and clean up

[David Zephyr]

3. The Mob Story Was the Disinformation Ready "Just In Case"

Anything to distract from the Dulles crowd.

I'm with you.

[buycitgo]

4. don't forget Helms

he lied about Clay Shaw's CIA ties, which was a huge factor in his acquittal

years later, he admitted it.

tonight on the History channel, they had a woman who supposedly had an affair w/Oswald, and ties him, Shaw, David Ferry, and some highly connected cancer specialists (anti-Castro) all together.

very interesting, if it's plausible.

But "they've" done such a good job of planting false leads, plausible, yet phony stories, that it's difficult to believe anything, other than the fact that there's been a forty year coverup.

don't forget that bit about the Oswald arrest being reported in New Zealand before it even happened.

shouldn't that ring a few bells somewhere?

[David Zephyr]

5. Clay Shaw.

Garrison's entire case came down to Clay Shaw, who the CIA later admitted was in their employ. And we know what happened with Garrison's case in New Orleans.

I see you are not buying the "mob" crap either.

[FlaGranny]

6. Look back at other assassinations and compare.

One thing that is common in just about every one is that the "lone assassin" NEVER shoots from a concealed location. Every one does the deed usually within touching distance of the victim. Just about every assassination by conspiracy is done from a concealed location. The lone assassin has a point to prove and does the shooting in public. The conspirational assassin has a job to do and he wants to do it in secret.

[Octafish]

7. Blakey is a sad, sad man.

As noted by the excellent posts above: Blakey, as counsel for the HSCA, pushed hard to continue supporting Oswald the Lone Nut. It was only when the acoustical evidence — analyzed very late in the committee's term — made it apparent there were at least four shots and highly likely six or more that he came around to admitting there was a conspiracy.

The conspirators's cover-up division use the Mafia as drop-back villains in the JFK case. Certainly the Mob was involved with the CIA, as well. That may be what Blakey has been trying to protect.

The more sinister angels of my being make me look past the obvious CIA-Castro assassination interface to the bunch of agency and the kill-Castro types from VP Nixon, E Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips, Theordore Shackley, Richard Helms and all the angry anti-Castro Bay of Piggers that weren't holed up in a Castro cell. You have to throw in J Edgar Hoover, Guy Bannister and David Ferrie, along with Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante.

Ask yourselves, "Was the Mob able to:

• Oswald readmitted to the US after "defecting" to the Soviet Union?

• Get Oswald a job in the TSBD or Reilly Coffee Company or Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall?

• Order the Secret Service detail to stand down at Love Field, leaving the President a sitting duck for the entire motorcade through Dallas?

• Change a Dallas newspaper reporter's story to reflect the President was shot from the back?

• Get LIFE magazine to change the order of frames from the Zapruder film to create the impression JFK moved forward?

• Arrange for a former CIA director to say he would lie under oath before Congress before revealing what he knew about the case?

• Cover up the crime for 40 years?

There are a bunch more I'm too sad this morning to list.