Re-open the Kennedy Assassination Probe

The assassination of John F. Kennedy is a moment, as it is for many Americans, that is unforgettable.

But what really concerns many people as we near 34 years since Kennedy was gunned down in his black limousine rounding the street in Dallas under the shadow of the Book Depository Building, is information that the government has kept secret from the public that changes my view about charges our president was the victim of a conspiracy.

Here is the picture as the facts present themselves, from pieces of information now, finally, being made public.

Scenario 1: Mob leaders who once controlled gambling and casino operations in Cuba, are pushed out under the communist revolution led by Fidel Castro. Castro immediately jails dozens of mobsters and casino operators, including Santo Trafficante, a Florida mobster with big investments in Cuba. Trafficante is eventually released, and becomes a business partner with Raul Castro, the brother of Cuba’s new President.

Scenario 2: Members of the Chicago Outfit (Mafia) organized to use their union clout to steal the Chicago and surrounding suburban votes for Kennedy’s election. Chicago Boss Sam Giancana and Tony “Big Tuna” Accardo believed that Kennedy “owed” them something for their help in “stealing” the election for Kennedy. True or not, they believed they did. Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy, has his own ties to the nation’s leading mobsters.

Scenario 3: Robert Kennedy, now attorney general under President Kennedy, his brother, launches a nearly personal attack against Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters and the mafia’s link to billions of dollars in union pension fund investments, much of which was used to open mob controlled casinos in Las Vegas.

Scenario 4: Tensions flare between Castro and Kennedy after Kennedy assumes control of the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was originally planned by President Dwight Eisenhower. It turns out to be a fiasco and embarrassment for Kennedy. The Kennedy administration plots Castro’s assassination.

Scenario 5: Relations between Kennedy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sour. Hoover hates the Kennedys. Hoover maintains files on Kennedy.

Hoover, while denouncing the “sexual perversions” of other people like Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King, is a closet homosexual who is allegedly maintaining a sexual relation with one of his top aides in the FBI, Clyde Tolson.

Hoover declares that there is no mafia in America and that La Cosa Nostra does not exist. He vetoes efforts by FBI underlings to investigate so-called organized crime.

Scenario 6: Kennedy, untrustful of Hoover, turns to the CIA to conceive a plot to murder Castro. The CIA approaches Trafficante, Giancana, and a mobster in New Orleans, Carlo Marcello. The New Orleans mob also controls organized crime operations in Dallas. They also control a street hustler and cabaret operator, Jack Ruby.

Trafficante, angry with Kennedy’s attacks against Hoffa and other mobsters, tells Castro’s brother Raul about the plot. Castro, thankful to Trafficante, returns all of the money that Trafficante lost during the Cuban revolution and the closing of casinos in Havana.

Scenario 7: Castro issues a warning in September 1963 that if the Americans persist in harming Cuban leaders, he will retaliate. Raul Castro uses his Cuba contacts in Florida to reach out to a disenchanted American Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, to kill Kennedy.

Scenario 8: Kennedy is murdered. Oswald’s ties to communism are played up but his ties to Castro are played down. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who also despised Kennedy, appoints the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. But LBJ orders that the findings conform to the findings of the FBI, which, controlled by Hoover, downplays and hides all evidence involving mobster involvement through Cuba and Trafficante. Among the members of the Warren Commission is John Foster Dulles, the head of the CIA, who maintains a silence on US efforts to assassinate Castro, and protects files maintained on mobsters Trafficante, Giancana and Marcello.

To this day, the CIA files on the three mobsters and the role in this sordid affair remain Top Secret.

Was Oswald the only person to fire upon Kennedy? It was hard to accept that premise, when we didn’t know about this mob connection to Castro and the role of the CIA and FBI in the Kennedy-Castro problems. It is even harder to believe today, when we know more about the truth.

Robert Kennedy must have known about all this too, and one can only speculate on his reasons for remaining silent about his brother’s murder.

Would it open up doors into his own family’s mob ties through his father? Or the CIA plot to murder Castro? (His father was a notorious rum-runner with ties to organized crime figures.)

And Robert Kennedy was no angel himself, exploiting his role as US Attorney General under his brother in 1961 by ordering the deportation of Marcello to Guatamala, where Marcello was bullied, beaten and harassed for nearly two years. Imagine what he wanted done to the Kennedy’s when he finally returned to the states?

The sad part is that as details of mob ties to the Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey-Oswald and to Raul Castro now slowly surface, we can only have less and less faith in the nobility and honesty of some of our government agencies.

If it were up to many people, Hoover’s name would be removed from every Federal building; Dulles, now dead, too, would be charged with conspiracy.

All files should be released so we can put this terrible event to bed.

It is a shameful, sordid affair that is a blot on this country and our government.

(The CIA has released some files, but continues to hold files on Chicago’s mob liaison to Las Vegas, the late Johnny Rosselli, and to Marcello. Why?)

Isn’t it about time that someone told us the truth and released the real facts behind this event thatoccupies the memories of millions of Americans who grew up in the shadow of one of our nation’sgreatest lies? The truth needs to come out, as ugly as it might be!