"They killed the son of a bitch......"Hoffa to an attorney on 11/22/63:

[9215]

Last Thursday night Frontline aired a show on Lee Harvey Oswald. If you saw it and/or know a bit about the mystery surrounding Jack Ruby this topic should be of special interest. When I discuss the Kennedy assasination I like to break the topic into at least two parts. One is the technical or forensics and the other is the social psychological or human associations part.



In the latter part I've alwasys been interested in Jack Ruby's links to organized crime.

The House Assasinations Committee of the 70's concluded that Kennedy was probably killed in a conspiracy. Hoffa and organized crime in general was Bobby Kennedy's enemy #1, he was bent on putting the brakes on them and, at one time, deported Marcello.

Ruby's link to Carlos Marcello (cited by the House Assasinations Committee as a suspect in the conspiracy) through the Campesios (sp)is what interests me here. I have a hunch that "Alpha 66ers" Leopoldo and Angel, who Oswald allegedly was in the company of, also where mechanics in the hit operation.

Marcello was linked to Ruby's Carousel lounge via one of Ruby's strippers. See Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew" page 579-80. Ruby was in contact (phone records) with Marcellos as late as October 30 1963.

Here's a snip.....

......Over the years since, Ruby's associations with organized crime--dating back to his Chicago days in the 1930's-- have been documented in numerous books. Some of the strippers at the Carousel Lounge were recruited from a New Orleans bar operated by Carlos Marcellos brother. Ruby's telephone records show that he called a Marcello lieutenant, Nofio Pecora, on August 4, and October 30; spoke to two of Jimmy Hoffas know hoodlums two weeks before the assassination; and remained in close touhs with Lewis McWillie, a frind of Santos Trafficante since their Havana casino days. The FBI has admitted that at least in 1959, Ruby acted as an FBI informant. Ruby has also made at least one trip to Cuba. in 1959, and wand was rumored to have run guns to Castro before the Cuban Revolution.
On November 22, 1963, attorney Frank Ragano said he recieved a phone call from an exuberant client. "Have you heard the good news?" Hoffa reportedly said. "They killed the son of a bitch. This means Bobby is out as Attorney General. Lyndon will get rid of Bobby." Indeed, Robert Kennedy's organized crime strike force would never meet again.

The evening of the assasination, Ragano had dinner in Tampa with Trafficante, who raised a toast to the president's demise and said: "Our problems are over now .... We're out of trouble now. We will build hotels, We will get back into Cuba now ". Two weeks later, in New Orleans, Ragano saw Marcello, who was angry because he had yet to recieve a $3 million he had requested from the Teamsters pension fund. "Jimmy owes me and owes me big," Ragano remembered Marcello saying. Sometime in December 1963, Hoffa told Ragano: "I'll never forget what Carlos did for me."
In February 1987, as Trafficante lay dying of heart disease, Ragano says he was summoned for one last conversation and told: "Carlos fucked up. We shouldn't have gotten Giovanni. We should have killed Bobby". This convinced the lawyer, once and for all, that his clients Trafficante and Hoffa had plotted with Marcello to kill the president......

The House Assasinations Committee concurred.

My next question is who steered the "intelligence community" out of the way so the deed could be done?


This book is, IMHO, the definitive work on the plot to kill Kennedy. This is just one page. Russell puts stuff out page after page for over 800 pages and a couple of thousand footnotes! IMO, No one has worked as hard to piece the puzzle together.

Oswald's P.O. box# is 2915

[girl gone mad]

1. Campisi

I only know because they operated a restaraunt chain here in Dallas that is still in business, Campisi's.

[9215]

3. Thanks

Hope they don't know you. :scared:

[mrbill]

17. "do like Jucy Ruby and let Campisi's be your host" -Campisi's webpage

The original "Egyptian Resturant" was opened on Mockingbird across from the Dr. Pepper plant in 1946. It was named the "Egyptian Resturant" because founder Joe Campisi was too cheap to change the sign from the previous occupant of the building.

On the eve of the Kennedy assassination Jack Ruby dined at the original Campisi Restaurant. He was also seen there with Oswald on previous occuasions. Then there's this rumor about officer Tippit.

Campisi's now has seven locations owned and operated by 3rd and 4th generation family members. The original still remains.

http://campisis.us/

[monobrau]

27. And they are still thugs

I had a girlfriend who knew some of the family members. They are still involved in gambling in Dallas. And btw, the food is crap.
People in Dallas have no clue when it comes to Italian food.

[Abe Linkman]

2. What JFK Assassination research Web sites do you recommend?

And, what is your opinion of Dr. Fetzer (up in Duluth, Minnesota) - who operates the "Assassination Science" web site?

[jeter]

4. People often cite that 1978 House Committee

But you realise that committee also ruled out involvement of the USSR, Cubans, and United States government. They also ruled that Oswald was in fact at least "one of the shooters." And based their "evidence" of a second rifleman on an acoustic tape that has since been debunked.

In fact, their only evidence had to do with Jack Ruby/Mafia alleged links. Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet, theory.

That's nonsense. Ruby had no intention of killing Oswald on November 24, 1963. He just happened to be at the police station when he was shot. Had Rudy arrived only 2 minutes later, he would have missed Oswald altogether. Had Oswald been taken from the police station as scheduled (he was running late), then Ruby would have missed him. Ruby ALWAYS carried his gun with him and was known for having a hot temper. When he saw Oswald being taken out with a smile on his face he snapped and shot him. The entire Dallas police Department had to be in on the conspiracy for this Ruby thing to be true. How would all these cops keep this a secret for so long?

No conspiracy. I'm sick and tired of people trying to make a dollar on the death of a great US President. This is like the National Enquirer making money on the misery of others. Let JFK rest in peace. Don't sponsor anymore charletons and money-grubbing whores who want to make a quick buck exposing yet another conspiracy.

Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy. Case closed.

[Malva Zebrina]

6. well, my mind is still open after all these years

so I cannot quite agree with you. There is just too much that has been kept hidden, and for that reason, I will remain suspicious. I would think that JFK could not rest in peace until everything is known, and still to this day, there are records that cannot be released. Someday, perhapsk or maybe not, the facts will be known. It strikes me odd that there is not a clear trail to Oswald.

[jeter]

11. What has been kept hidden?

What else do you need to know?

Lets review the facts:

1) It seems pretty conclusive that three shots were fired at the motorcade on November 22, 1963. One shot missed. Two shots hit Kennedy and Connolly.

2) All shots came from behind from the School Book Depository. The sixth floor, most likely. Where a gun was found registered to A. Hidelle (spelling).

3) Oswald was an employee of the school book depository and was the only employee missing when the police finally did a roll call of employees.

4) The police put out a bulletin with Oswalds decription as the man who possibly shot the President. JD Tippett, a police officer, stopped a man matching Oswalds description and was shot to death by a gun later on Oswald when he was discovered in the movie theater. That gun was also registered to A. Hidelle.

5) The three shots were entirably makeable. The assertion made in Oliver Stone's JFK that "not a single Army sharpshooter was able to make the shot" was a lie. Oswald was actually a good shot.

6) Jack Ruby had been distraught at the death of Kennedy. Enough so, that he closed his strip club the entire weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He ALWAYS carried a gun with him. On the day he shot Oswald, he brought along his favorite dog and left him/her in the car as he stepped inside the Police Station (hardly the act of someone who was about to kill somebody).

7) The final route of the Presidential motorcade was not released until three days before JFK was shot. The route was never "changed" as is widely repeated. Another Oliver Stone fiction.

8) Oswald started working at the school book depository on October 15, 1963 - 5 weeks before the shooting. Even when I believed in the conspiracy, this was the one fact that no one could explain. What a coincidence it was that Oswald, this man with all these CIA links (if you believe in the Oliver Stone fiction), was working in the same place Kennedy was about to drive by.

9) Earlier that summer, Oswald attempted to killed General Walker who was a fierce anti-communist. And barely missed him.

10) That photo of Oswald holding onto the rifle, that some argue is fake - was taken by Marina Oswald. Even though she now says that Oswald is innocent. She still admits to taking that photo.

11) The night before Oswald shot Kennedy, he went to visit Marina and his children and left her all the money he had.

12) The day Oswald went to work, he was seen by several people carrying a large box. He told them that they were "curtain rods."

It seems obvious that Oswald killed Kennedy.

[9215]

8. zzzzzzzz

But you realise that committee also ruled out involvement of the USSR, Cubans, and United States government. They also ruled that Oswald was in fact at least "one of the shooters." And based their "evidence" of a second rifleman on an acoustic tape that has since been debunked.

Could you supply some sources please.


In fact, their only evidence had to do with Jack Ruby/Mafia alleged links. Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet, theory.

Well, OK that seems to be the topic here.

That's nonsense. Ruby had no intention of killing Oswald on November 24, 1963. He just happened to be at the police station when he was shot. Had Rudy arrived only 2 minutes later, he would have missed Oswald altogether. Had Oswald been taken from the police station as scheduled (he was running late), then Ruby would have missed him. Ruby ALWAYS carried his gun with him and was known for having a hot temper. When he saw Oswald being taken out with a smile on his face he snapped and shot him. The entire Dallas police Department had to be in on the conspiracy for this Ruby thing to be true. How would all these cops keep this a secret for so long?

Is your opinion, or do you have some sources to back it up?

No conspiracy. I'm sick and tired of people trying to make a dollar on the death of a great US President. This is like the National Enquirer making money on the misery of others. Let JFK rest in peace. Don't sponsor anymore charletons and money-grubbing whores who want to make a quick buck exposing yet another conspiracy.

Do you see the Kennedy's, those most deeply affected by this tragedy, wanting to see this topic dropped? I've never heard a complaint from them about the pursuit of the truth here.


Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy. Case closed.

I respectfully disagree and will continue my skeptical inquiry, thank you.


Question: Did you just make all of this up?

[jeter]

12. Read the report.

The "probable conspiracy" had to do with the mafia. Not the CIA.

[9215]

13. If you don't believe the House Assasinations

Committee...you just said Oswald did it alone.....then why do you flip-flop and cite them as creditworthy in the "probable conspiracy" aspect.

You are contradicting yourself.

It would be much easier for you to supply the snip of the report to support your contention than for me to go on, in all probability a wild goose chase, to find something that may not be there. :crazy:

Plus none of your posts so far are really addressing my topic. I'm trying to narrow the topic to Ruby's role for now. ;)

[9215]

5. I've done most of my work by reading books

For this kind of research I like a book. "The Man Who Knew" is a very easy read, almost like a novel and the exhaustive amount of research and interviews really show up in the end product. I like to flip to the sources then maybe dig them up. It took me a year to get a copy of "The Man" via Amazon.com.

Thanks for the link. I'll check out Dr. Fetzer and the Assasination Science web site.

[Unknown Known]

7. Did Ruby run a "guns for hostages" deal in Cuba for CIA?

Tales of Ruby running guns to Cuba abounded in the FBI reports taken in the first weeks after the assassination, yet neither the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee pursued those leads very far. Griffin and Hubert expressed concern over this, saying that "neither Oswald's Cuban interests in Dallas nor Ruby's Cuban activities have been adequately explored." 3

http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr795-ruby.html

We know he got Santos Trafficante out of Cuba - but why?

Jack Ruby has always been of great interest to me - especially since he connects the characters of Oswald with David Ferrie. But many questions persist in my mind about people and events around Jack "Sparky" Rubinstein of Chicago...

- Who set Ruby up in Dallas with the Carousel club and why? Was it the FBI/CIA? We know Ruby was a paid informant at the time.

- Is imprisoned ex-Congressman, James Traficant, any relation to Santos Trafficante? This would explain a lot.

And most perplexing of all -

- Why did Bobby Kennedy go after the Mafia with so much force when his own father was so tightly connected to them?

[9215]

26. For the record. Ex-CIA director Allen Dulles,

who was fired by Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs "thing", managed to get appointed to the Warren Commission and vigoursly pursued the lone assasin strategy. I need to get more on what actually transpired here.

Unknown, see Octafish's post just below this one.

The Kennedy family's connections to the Mob are strange, no doubt. Stranger still is how their public actions were not favorable to the Mob, just the opposite. At this point I measure the Kennedy's role with the Mob by their public deeds in opposition to them not their private intrigues.

[Octafish]

9. The mob was in it up to their CIA deodorized armpits...

Also playing roles were Sam Giancana, Frank Costello and Johnny Rosseli. Their first CIA liaison was Robert Maheu, Howard Hughes' fixer, and their main FBI contact was the Director himself, J Edgar Hoover.

The efforts to bump off Castro are eerily familiar. Remember, Guy Bannister and the anti-Castro Cubans once used Ruby and Ferrie to arm Castro and his followers in the revolution against Batista. Today, Bush Jr and his anti-terror neo-cons go after Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein — both heads of terror organizations the US Government helped create and fund.

[9215]

16. Nice bit of deja vu

The part about Ruby in Cuba you cited somewhere recently correct?

Before I forget I want to remind you of Marcello's link to Walter Mischer a moneybags, powerbroker for Poppy. This is in Peter Brewton's book "The Mafia, The CIA, and George Bush" page 18-19. Brewton cites the Carousel Hotel and another place the Carousel Motel as places controlled by Marcello. An independent verification of this is in a book "The Man on The Grassy Knoll" , by two Houston investigators John R. Craig and Phil Rogers. They state that one of the tramps identified as Charles Harrelson called the Carrousel Motel at 3330 Reville across from the Gulfgate Mall. Mischer sold the Carrousel Hotel to Marcello. Brewton corroborates Mischer's ties to Marcello with two other people, one a longtime Mischer employee and the other a private investigator in Houston.

[Octafish]

19. Coulda been about a five dozen DUers...

... including you and a whole lot more of DU's finest.

Now that you mention it, I do remember bringing up how Richard Milhous Nixon used and protected Jack Ruby when he was Jack Rubenstein from Chicago. Nixon's help wasn't just in fixing some parking tickets, either. Rubenstein may've been a trigger man and Tricky Dick wanted to keep him clear for whatever nefarious business the Mafia-CIA-Nixon needed.


Richard Nixon's Greatest Cover-Up:
His Ties to the Assassination of President Kennedy

by Don Fulsom

EXCERPT...

(Sam) Giancana's half-bother Chuck and nephew Sam claimed in their 1992 book Double Cross that the Mafia don had a long, warm, and mutually rewarding relationship with Nixon that dated back to the 1940s. In those times, Giancana was helping Chicago Syndicate boss Anthony Accardo consolidate the city's rackets and gambling operations, and Nixon was a freshman congressman from California. In recounting for his relatives a big favor the congressman did for Giancana back then, the gangster established a direct link between Nixon and a Chicago hoodlum who later moved to Texas and went on to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald: "Nixon's done me some favors, all right, got us some highway contracts, worked with the unions and overseas. And we've helped him and his CIA buddies out, too. Shit, he even helped my guy in Texas, (Jack) Ruby, get out of testifying in front of Congress back in forty-seven … By sayin' Ruby worked for him."

A 1947 memo, found in 1975 by a scholar going through a pile of recently released FBI documents, supports Giancana's contention. In the memo, addressed to a congressional committee investigating organized crime, an FBI assistant states: "It is my sworn testimony that one Jack Rubenstein of Chicago ... is performing information functions for the staff of Congressman Richard Nixon, Republican of California. It is requested Rubenstein not be called for open testimony in the aforementioned hearings." (Later in 1947, Rubenstein moved to Dallas and shortened his last name.) The FBI subsequently called the memo a fake, but the reference service Facts on File considers it authentic.

Undercover work for the young Congressman Nixon would have been in keeping with Ruby's history as a police tipster and government informant. In 1950, Ruby gave closed-door testimony to Estes Kefauver's special Senate committee investigating organized crime. Committee staffer Luis Kutner later described Ruby as "a syndicate lieutenant who had been sent to Dallas to serve as a liaison for Chicago mobsters." In exchange for Ruby's testimony, the FBI is said to have eased up on its probe of organized crime in Dallas. In 1959, Ruby became an informant for the FBI.

Ruby's old Chicago boss, Giancana, was murdered in his home in Oak Park, Ill., in 1975 — shortly before he was to have appeared before a Senate committee investigating assassinations. Seven .22-caliber bullets were blasted into his mouth and neck, Mob symbolism for "talks too much."

CONTINUED...

http://crimemagazine.com/2003/richardnixon,20031014.htm


Here's some background on Ruby's Cuban escapades on behalf of the Eisenhower-Nixon White House for online perusal (remember, Tricky Dick was CIA White House Action Office, according to the late Col. Fletcher Prouty:

"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 Ruby

Gunrunner Ruby and the CIA

by Lisa Pease

It's not as if they didn't know. Assistant counsels to the Warren Commission Burt Griffin and Leon Hubert wrote, in a memo to the Warren Commission members dated March 20, 1964, that "the most promising links between Jack Ruby and the assassination of President Kennedy are established through underworld figures and anti-Castro Cubans, and extreme right-wing Americans." 1 Two months later, Griffin and Hubert wrote another memo to the Commission, significantly titled "Adequacy of the Ruby Investigation" in which they warned, "We believe that a reasonable possibility exists that Ruby has maintained a close interest in Cuban affairs to the extent necessary to participate in gun sales or smuggling."

Ruby had talked about it himself while in jail, reportedly telling a friend, "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." 2 Tales of Ruby running guns to Cuba abounded in the FBI reports taken in the first weeks after the assassination, yet neither the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee pursued those leads very far. Griffin and Hubert expressed concern over this, saying that "neither Oswald's Cuban interests in Dallas nor Ruby's Cuban activities have been adequately explored." 3


If They Dared

Hubert and Griffin expressed in their memo of May 14 to Rankin that "we believe that the possibility exists, based on evidence already available, that Ruby was involved in illegal dealings with Cuban elements who might have had contact with Oswald. The existence of such dealings can only be surmised since the present investigation has not focused on that area." 4 They expressed concern that "Ruby had time to engage in susbtantial activities in addition to the management of his Clubs" and that "Ruby has always been a person who looked for money-making 'sidelines'." They even suggested that since the Fort Worth manufacturer of the famous "Twist Board" Ruby was demonstrating the night after the assassination had no known sales, and was manufactured by an oil field equipment company, that "he possibility remains that the 'twist board' was a front for some other illegal enterprise." But what Griffin and Hubert kept coming back to is that there was "much evidence" that Ruby "was interested in Cuban matters, citing his relationship to Louis McWillie; his attempted sale of jeeps to Castro, his reported attendance of meetings "in connection with the sale of arms to Cubans and the smuggling out of refugees"; and Ruby's quick correction of Wade's remark that Oswald was a member of the Free Cuba Committee, a group populated with such notables as Clare Booth Luce, Admiral Arleigh Burke, and Hal Hendrix. "Bits of evidence link Ruby to others who may have been interested in Cuban affairs."

CONTINUED...

http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr795-ruby.html


/b]Regarding Brewton and his excellent work documenting the BFEE:

Oh yeh. He's the real deal. I'm proud to hope Pete Brewton may be a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. Back in the early 90s we all worked to figure out what was going on with the Savings & Loans. Brewton broke a lot of the reeeealy big stories, including the links between the CIA and looted S&Ls in Houston and elsewhere. The one I'm familiar with had a seemingly clean guy inside helping his "friends" on the outside get $5 million-size loans for "auto malls" and other interesting developments that went belly-up before a spade of dirt could be turned for a groundbreaking. These people would disperse the money to their allies, then declare bankruptcy. The government couldn't recover the money, they were broke. While a few went to jail for 6 months or so, most went unpunished. Well, not everybody. We the Taxpayers ended up picking up this particular S&L's $62 million depositor bailout.

[9215]

28. Brewton got screwed over on his book deal

He was suppose to get it out before the 92' election but his publisher kept putting it off until it was too late for Brewton to switch to another. He got it out after the election.

Sounds alot like Hatfield's "Fortunate Son" being pulled from shelves and then put back on them after selection 2000.

Poppy is well known for "bending" publisher's and editors ears.

Nixon's link to Ruby is damned suspicous too. Thanks for putting that up.

[Myra]

10. I have an open mind on this subject too, tho' feel that the 60 hits...

Were orchestrated by the right wing.

And it's not a subject I claim to be knowledgeable
on. But this quote doesn't jibe:

"They killed the son of a bitch......"

"They..."

That's not something a conspirator says.
That's something an outsider says.
(Regardless of whether they're happy or unhappy at the news;
it indicates surprise.)

As in:
"Holy shit; they killed Wellstone."
(Sorry if it's bad form to quote myself.)

[Unknown Known]

14. As in, ""My God, they're going to kill us all!" - John Connally

Who was Connally referring to when he said "they're"? Why would he say such a thing?

If it were a surprise and there was only ONE bullet, what would prompt him to say this strange statement?

[Old and In the Way]

15. Was there ever any documented evidence of Oswald making

threats on Kennedy? If so, what was his beef? Was Oswald pro-Castro or anti-Castro? What would motivate him to do it?

The other thing that I found strange in the ABC special last week was how incredibly easy they made it to do in Oswald. Security was ridiculous...for someone alledged to have killed the President, Oswald was incredibly exposed. I believe they even told reporters what time he'd be leaving the jail....what kind of security was that?

It really pisses me off. I don't know Ruby's motivation, but this monumentally selfish act kept us from understanding Oswald's role in the assassination as well as details that could have have either exonorated him, incriminated others, or clarified his guilt.

[nolabels]

20. How about some of this?

People really should study up on some of these folks

http://www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html
(snip)(about three quarters of the way down the link)

One of the first researchers to reveal the connections between the U.S. government and the Nazis, was a lady named Mae Brussell of Carmel, California. Her career as a conspiracy researcher and host of the weekly radio program "World Watchers International" began with the Kennedy assassination. "In ferreting out every morsel from the Warren Report," writes Jonathan Vankin, author of the book "Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes," "supplementing her research with untold amounts of reading from the 'New York Times' to 'Soldier of Fortune,' Brussell discovered not merely a conspiracy of a few renegade CIA agents, Mafiosi, and Castro haters behind Kennedy's death, but a vast, invisible institutional structure layered into the very fabric of the U.S. political system.

"Comprising the government within a government were not just spies, gangsters, and Cubans, but Nazis. Mae found that many of the commission witnesses -- whose testimony established Oswald as a lone nut' -- had never even spoken to Oswald, or knew him only slightly. The bulk of them were White Russian emigres living in Dallas. Extreme in their anti-Communism, they were often affiliated with groups set up by the SS in World War II -- Eastern European ethnic armies used by the Nazis to carry out their dirtiest work.

"Brussell also discovered an episode from history rarely reported in the media, and not often taught in universities. Those same collaborationist groups were absorbed by United States intelligence agencies. They hooked up with the spy net of German General Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's Eastern Front espionage chief."

"'This is a story of how key Nazis . . . anticipated military disaster and laid plans to transplant nazism, intact but disguised, in havens in the West,' wrote Mae Brussell in 1983. She didn't author too many articles, but this one, 'The Nazi Connection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination' (in 'The Rebel,' a short-lived political magazine published by 'Hustler' impresario Larry Flynt), was definitive, albeit convoluted.

"'It is a story that climaxes in Dallas on November 22, 1963, when John Kennedy was struck down,' Brussell's article continued. 'And it is a story with an aftermath -- America's slide to the brink of Fascism.'"

Mae Brussell quit broadcasting her radio show in Spring of 1988, after receiving a death threat from a "man who is said to have identified himself as 'a fascist and proud of it.'"
(snip)

This link from the thread
It's time for another Bush/Nazis thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=199853

Nixon and the whole lot of the dirtbags were just a setup by people with money, just follow the money :-)

[9215]

22. Thanks for your work!!

Mae Brussel is very important in exposing this stuff. Thanks for the effort in bringing this back to life. :toast: :bounce:

[nolabels]

23. The people who brought it back to life are the crooks trying to keep...

dirt from being uncovered, they crack me up, always revisiting the scene of the crime. With out you, this would have never got there, so I would THANK YOU very much, we have learned a lot.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Have you read much about Santo Trafficante?

This report from the Tresury Department indicates he would have had reason to carry a HUGE grudge against Fidel Castro's revolution.



(snip) BUSINESSES:

Santo TRAFFICANTE Jr. openly operated the Sans Souci and the Casino International gambling establishments in Cuba during the rule of ex-dictator Fulgencio Batista. As a leading member of the syndicate, he was the overseer of these two gambling casinos. It was suspected that he also had behind-the-scenes interests in other syndicate owned Cuban gambling casinos namely, The Riviera, The Tropicana, The Sevilla Biltmore, The Capri Hotel Casino and the Havana Hilton. He was toppled from control of these casinos by the Castro revolution.

He has interests in the Columbia Restaurant and the Nebraska, Tangerine and Sands Bars, all in Tampa.

Recent, unconfirmed information has it that Santo TRAFFICANTE Jr.'s is "absolutely broke" and that he owes money to his associates. The alleged debts amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. (snip/...)
http://cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0126.htm

There were angles of interaction between the CIA and the Mafia, I have read, a long time ago.

Does anyone remember that Jack Kennedy "dated" the girlfriend of a Mafia boss, Sam Giancana? Her name was Judith Campbell Exner.

There's every reason in the world to believe the Mafia was hopping mad about Cuba and had designs on getting control of the hotels and casinos back in their hands, as it was with Fulgencio Batista.

9215, this is an interesting thread. I'll be interested in checking back here.

[9215]

25. Great stuff Judi

Trafficante was also intimately tied to Cuba via the international illegal drug trade. If you want an excellent read on this try Alfred McCoy's newer book "The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the International drug trade". This book does to the drug trade what Russell's book has done to the JFK assasination.

Trafficante got his start with Meyer Lansky and both were involved with Lucky Lucianos heroin smuggling operations. Luciano was hired by the US Naval Investigative Service to get control of the New York waterfront early in WWII to prevent Nazis from sneaking into the US. This is the moment, IMO, when the US intelligence community made its fateful alliance with organized crime.

...In its 1965 "international list" of narcotics traffickers the Federal Bureau of Narcotics described Trafficatnte as a "powerful Mafia figure in Tampa, Florida" who "knows most of the major sources of supply of narcotics in Central and South America. Suspected of smuggling narcotics into the United States"..... (McCoy page75)

Castro's takeover of Cuba threw a big wrench into the international drug trade and, IMO, affected the shift of smuggling from the Mediterranean region to S.E. Asia. Again, IMO, the Vietnam War was largely about securing and maintaining those dope lines. Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek who was cited for dealing in drugs with the Japaneze occupation forces during WWII was behind Vietnam's corrupt Diem. Castro and Cuba were a big pain for the Mafia, but Cuba really screwed up by letting the Soviets bring in missiles. China was furious at the Soviet Union for this and rightly concluded that this would cause the US to move to the Right.

It seems almost certain that this hostility to Cuba over the years is because they screwed up the international drug trade as well as the gambling--prostitution rings in Cuba. Castro just booted the thugs out. I've thought we could solve alot of our probs in the US by turning Florida over to Cuba for a few years. :evilgrin:

McCoy's book is phenomenal, his first book in 1971 with a similar name blew the lid on the CIA's involvement in drug smuggling. He also gets into the Afghanistan drug trade in detail.



Kennedy was no angel, he was a notorious philanderer, but I don't get into that much because the fascists now running this country are never called out by the Press on their private pasts. It's a rigged game on this level. Notice how there is now talk of Dean's Vietnam era actions regarding the military service but not a word about Dubya's being AWOL. It stinks.

[loyalsister]

21. Strange scenario I saw in a movie...

I think it was called "Ruby," but can't remember a book it was based on or anything. The story was woven as above with some unusual twists. Ruby turns into a hero in that scenario for a new reason. The motivation for killing Oswald was so that he would be arrested and questioned. He was outraged by the conspiracy, and wanted to spill the story. He figured the only way to do it would be to get arrested and taken to Washington for questioning. Trouble was he underestimated the CIA. Another difference was that in this scenario, the CIA was working in collusion with organized crime to take down Castro. Interesting to consider in light of Operation Northwoods.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Maybe this could might be interesting to you

It points out Cuban-exiles, CIA as being the actors in a host of violent acts in this hemisphere. This particular short article directs attention to the murder of Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letellier, his American aide, Ronnie Moffit, and near murder of her husband, in the streets of Washington D.C.:

(snip) "Are you the wife of Orlando Letelier?" asked the anonymous caller. "Yes," she answered. "No," the caller said, ~ you are his widow."

A week later, on September 21, 1976, the exiled Chilean diplomat and prominent critic of the CIA-backed Pinochet regime was torn to pieces by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC. Also killed was Letelier's American aide, Ronni Moffit. Her husband, blown clear of the car, immediately began shouting that Chilean fascists were responsible for the atrocity.

He was right, but those fascists had powerful allies in Washington. An FBI informant knew of the plot to assassinate Letelier before the fact but the FBI did nothing to protect him. After the bombing, CIA Director George Bush told the FBI that there'd been no Chilean involvement whatever. The CIA was certain of this, he said, because it had many reliable sources inside the Chilean secret police, DINA.
Actually, the CIA had known that a DINA hit squad was in the US and headed for Washington. After the bombing, the agency purged its files of photos of the assassins. The CIA and DINA then began planting stories in the press suggesting that Letelier had been killed by leftists seeking to make a martyr of him.

The FBI figured out the identities of Letelier's assassins within weeks, but didn't charge them until the CIA's cover-up unraveled several years later. The unraveling began a month after the killing, when a Cuban airliner was bombed, killing 73 passengers. That bombing was done by a violent group of CIA-linked Cuban exiles who were connected with the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination and who went on to do similar things in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Investigators into the airliner bombing discovered that both it and the Letelier/Moffit killings were planned at the same meeting, which was organized by a man with longtime CIA connections and was attended by other FBI and CIA men. (snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Letelier_CIAHits.html