dallas to watergate - the hidden connection

8/4/2019 Dallas to Watergate - The Hidden Connection

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NOY. 18~ ~ The Secret Service cancels in-honse prober of the Kennedy assassination, represented the Chicago syndicates interests in~ ,~l-~o~ .... ;~ta~;al ~,~tor~ade in Miami himself ignorant of the plots later testified that Las Vegas and Hollywood........... knowledge of them would have been an abso- Roselh m~roduced the CIA to his own boss,a F e r" zt lear~s, o7 a r~gl~t-wm,~ ptot to sn,,o.ot lutely vital factor" in his inquiry. Sam Giancana of Chicago, who in turn put thePreszdent John t7. Kennedy [rom an o~ce Public revelation of the CIA conspiracy would agency in touch with the crime chief of Tampa,building with a high-powered rifle." An have raised ugly questions: Was Lee Harvey Fire, Santos Trafficante. (It was all a matter ofextremist close to the plotters has predicted Oswald, who had associated with anti-Castro protocol, of going through the proper channels.)that a patsy will be set up "within hours operatives linked to the plots, a tool of rogue Trafficante, who controlled a small army ofa[terwards.., just to throw the public o[~." intelligence agents? Did Jack Rubys own under- Cuban exiles, became the point man in the plots;world associates bring him into the same con- it was he who would select the first crop of~]~. ~ ~o President Kennedy arrives spiracy? In short, did the CIA unwittingly cause assassins and pass the poison along to them.in Dallas to shore up wavering politicalsupport in the South. Reacting to the tensepolitical atmosphere, he turns to his wileand says, "You know, were heading intonut country today."Across the Atlantic Ocean a top CIA offi-cer is holding a clandestine rendezvous inParis with a disloyal official---code-namedAMLASH--o[ Fidel Castros lout-year-oldregime. The CIA officer, misrepresentinghimsel[ as a personal emissary o[ AttorneyGeneral Robert Kennedy, claims that theWhite House plans to overthrow Castro.Then the CIA man hands AM.LASH aninnocent-looking pen that delivers a lethalpoison, and promises to smuggle into Cubaa sniper rifle with a telescopic sight. Themission: assassinate Castro.Even as they are ta~ing, at 12:30 p.m.Dallas time, Kennedy waves to the crowds~rom his open limousine. Three or moreshots ring out. The president dies almostinstantlyAmerican politics almost beyond recognition.Kennedys murder struck down hopes for relax-ing the Cold War, and installed a new presidentcommitted to militarizing foreign policy andwinning in Vietnam. The assassination--and sev-eral more that followed--shattered smugassumptions about Americas political stabi~ty.Long before Watergate, it led millions of citizensto question the credibility of leaders whoallowed polities, not the truth, to guide theirinvestigation of the case.But behind closed doors, out of public view,the .assassination had other effects no less pro-found. It launched the CIA and other covertforces--including powerful members of orga-nized crime--into a prolonged cover-up ofcrimes that preceded Kennedys presidency butmight have caused his death, a cover-up thatwould warp American government for years to

The CIA hid from the W arren Commission andother investigators its dkrtiest secret: how itteamed up with gangsters and hoodlums, with-out presidential sanction, to try to murder FidelCastro. Had the commission, or the public,learned of the plots (initiated under fight-lippedcommission member Allen Dulles, former &rec-tor of the CIA), the whole course of the investiga-tion might have changed. The CIAs own

Kennedys death?The CIA could not know in 1963--and maystill not know today--whether its murder plotsagainst Castro caused the brutal slaying in Dal-las. To this day, the agency withholds from theAmerican people vital information relating to thecase. What is clear in retrospect, however, is thatpeople in high places went to great lengths tosee that no one would ask the question. Thecycle of c0ver-up and blackmail, only now dimlyunderstood, would ultimately convulse Americanpolitics in a morass of intrigue culminating inour greatest national scandal: Watergate.

From the CIAs perspective, these gangstershad a lot going for them. They unquestionablyhad the know-how for a "wet job." And theywere hot to avenge Castros takeover of theLrfabulously lucrative gambling casinos.But the Mafiosi who so patriotically volun-teered their services exacted a price. Once cov-ered by the mantle of "national security," theycould no longer be touched. As early as 1961,the CIA had to call off an FBI probe of Maheu,who had fllagally bugged a I_as Vegas hotel roomas a favor to Giancana, the Chicago godfather.The CIA told the stunned investigators that pros-ecution of Maheu would endanger a nationalsecurity operation.Totd about the cover-up in 1962, AttorneyGeneral Robert Kennedy demanded an explana-tion. Two CIA briefing officers sketched for himthe outlines of the plots--a year and a half afterthey had begun. He reacted with outrage. If youhave seen Mr. Kennedys eyes get steely and hisjaw set and his voice get low and precise."recalled one of the officials, "you get a definitefeeling of unhappiness."The CIAs reluctance m brief the Kennedybrothers about the plots was understandable.The plots got under way only after Bobby hadnamed Giancana and Trafficante as public ene-mies in a book on corruption in the TeamstersUnion. As chief counsel to the McClellan racketscommittee, Bobby had grilled Giancana (whotook the fi~h) with questions l~ke, "Would youtell us, if you have opposition from anybody, thatyou dispose o~ them by having them stuffed in atrunk? Is that what you do. Mr. Giancana?"Beyond that, Maheu, the CIA-Mafia go-be-tween, had helped Teamster boss Jimmy Hoff~fend off Bobby Kennedys investigations of unionracketeering in the 1950s. One highly reliablegovernment informant even insists that the CIArecruited Hoffa himself to the kill-Castro project.By its choice of operatives, therefore, theknew it was undermining the Kennedy brotherscommitment to smash organized crime."It would be very difficult to hfitiate any prose-cution against Giancana," Bobby lamented afterhearing about the plots, "as Giancana couldimmediately bring out the fact the U.S. Govern-ment had approached him m arrange for theassassination of Castro."The attorney general took comfort in thethought that he had turned the plots off by hisstern words to the CIA. Little did he know thatbehind his back--and contrary to their strictassurances--CIA officers kept the Mafia ~lots

alive, without even informing the agencys-newdirector. The CIA relying on its own resourcescontinued


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p ~abb.ed !n, 197_2 as o_~e. of t~.e W.at.ergate @. boss. so PO Weyful tIm.t he could kill with impurdtyw , n o zn me mu of 1960, Sturg~ clmms, he plotted rival bosses from other parts of the country~ Hey ~v~..th ~_o s m~.~. ess to po_..mon the .C.uba~ ~_ruler. had every r~ason to hate the Kennedys, both for, . Chica;g~ o .l~.a_ chi.e~f,S.~ Giancana himself may their unrelenting prosecutions of organifed~esll _ have backed Sturgts plot. crime and for their "vendetta" agalr~ his friendwas re.~vin.g the .ass~.mation . As ff Oswalds dangerous associations werent Jimmy Hoff-a..very t~m.e..Presldent Ke~m edy was con sidering enough, the CIA also had Jack Ruby to worry In September 1962, Trafficante met with a~e, posslbthty of n.ormaliza.fion of relations with. about. Cuban exile friend of AM/_~SH to ~dscuss a $1.Cuba--an extmor,di.nary.acla.0n. I~ it was not total The Warren Commi~inn p~.rtmyed the .man million loan from the Teamster pension fund. Asmcomp.etenceT-,wm, ch" m the cas.e of the CIA Who sh.ot Oswald as a shghtly demon_ted, stmc_fl,y, the exile later recounted to investigators, Traffi-can_not be excmueu--~t was a studied attempt to smafl-tmae Dallas bar owner. The reality couldn t canto told him, "It is not right what they aresubvert national, policy." have been more different- Ruby (the name had doing to Hefts. Mark my word, this man Ken-The CIA didn t.brief Presid.ent Kennedy about been shortened from Rubinstoin) had grown up nedy is in tr, ouble, and he ",viii get what is corn-the plots, an official later testified, because it was in Chicago, where as a youth he had run errands ing to him. When asked how that could ber. e essary to ~rur~rm the president of detmis, for AI Capone himself. In the late 1930s, he had because Kennedy would hkely v~n the next elec-After Nov. 22, 1963, the CIA didnt tell the the played a key role in the violent rise to newer of a tion Trafficante revlied "You dont understandWarren Comm ission, either. One top agency offi- crooked Chicago union boss who woul~d become me. Kennedys not~goin~ to make it to the elec-cial from that period explained that he and his a leading Midwest ally of Jm~ay Hefts and a tion. He is going to be hit."colleagues "didnt think it was relevant. I would target of Bobby Kennedys investigations.On the contrary, the information was all toorelevant.

After 20 years of scrutiny, Lee Harvey Osw aldslife remains a riddle. He lef~ behind a track ofaliases po~ office boxes and contradictuw docu-mentation that- mark him as some kind of intelli-gence operative. In the final months of his lif~,that track split into multiple branches, as Oswaldtook-alikes apparently planted evidence thatwould incriminate him as a violent personalitywith leftist sympathies. But the real Oswald wasalways elsewhere, o~en maneuvering fartivelywith individuals on the periphery of the CIAsdeath squad.* in the summer of 1963, Oswald seems tohave been involved in a shadowy scheme todiscredit the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Corn-mince, then a prime target of FBI andharassment. HIS associates in this missionbelonged to the Cuban Revolutionary Council,set up by future Watergate burglar Howard Huntas a political arm of the free Cuba movement. By1963 the CiA/Mafia funded CRC was controlledby the very Cuban exile leader recruited by San-tos Trafficante to poison Castro.~ In A ugust 1963, Oswald attempted to talk hisway into an anti-Castro Vzaiinng camp outsideNew Orleans. A witness later alleged that anemployee of Trafficantes closest Mafia ally tookOswald to the camp "to train with rifles." One ofthe camps exile leaders tin-us ou t to have been a"lifelong friend" and confidant of the CIAs otherhit man, AMLASH. In short, the camp broughtthe world of CIA plots to Oswalds door..Finaliy, one of the key figures in the trainingcamp was Frank Sturgis, a soldier of fortune

Ruby had moved to Dallas in the 1947 to helpthe Chicago mob muscle in on local rackets.Later FBI reports tagged blm as the "chief payoffman" to the Dallas police department. In 1963,according to phone records, Ruby stayed intouch with mobsters and Teamster officialsaround the country.Beset with reports that Oswalds killer was infact a big-time hoodlum, the commissionaccepted the word of two notorious Chicago hitmen that Ruby was per~eetly clean. A moreobjective look turns up Rubys own connectionsto the CIA murder plots.Those two hit men associates of Ruby, forexample, happened to have been Havana casinopartners of Santos Trafficante. According toreports, Ruby himself had run guns to Cuba. In1959, according to Congressional investigators,he most likely accompanied another mobster tovisit Trafficante, whom Castro had temporarilyimprisoned in the aftermath of the revolution.After Kennedys murder, the CIA must surelyhave worried, as Ruby himself did (according toa jail visitor), that "now theyre going to find outabout Cuba, theyre going to find out about theguns, ftnd out about New Orleans, find out abouteverything." But with the Warren Commission incharge (see box, opposite page), Ruby neednthave worried. Only years later did the HouseSelect Committee on Assaasdnations suggest thatRuby (who died of cancer in 1967) wasnt lying,w, hen he told his prison psychiatrist that he knewwho had President Kennedy killed" and that hewas "framed into killing Oswald."

Take Santos Trafficante, for example, a Mafia

The story won powerful ,~orroborafion fromIohn Roseffi, Robert Maheu s original recruit tothe CiA/Mafia plots. Rosefli told Jack Andersonin I976 that Kennedys murderers were "Cubansfrom the old Trafficante organization" who"lined up an ex-Marine sharpshooter. Lee HarveyOswald, who had been active in the pro-CastroAs Anderson recounted Rosellis story,"Oswald may have shot Kennedy or may haveacted as a decoy while others ambushed himfrom closer range. When Oswa ld was picked up,Roselli suggested, the underworld conspiratorsfeared he would crack and disclose irfformafionthat might lead to them. This almost certainly

would have brought a massive crackdown on theMafia in the United States. So ~ack Ruby wasordered to eliminate Oswald, making it appear asan act of reprisal against the Presidents killer."Shortly before his scheduled appearancebefore a Congressional committee investigatinghis role in the assassination plots, Rose!Iis tor-tured body turned up in a drum off the Floridacoast. "Authorities believe it was a raembar ofthe Trafficante organization who was able to lureMr. Roselli to his death," the New York Timesreported.

The blackmail efforts really took off in 1966,when Sam Giancana used CIA immunity throughthe Justice Department to kill a federal indict-rhent- Robert Maheu likewise prevailed on theCIA to block a Congressional investigation of


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accusations that he engaged in illegal wiretap-ping. There is also considerable evidence, toocomplex to detail here, that Mafia allies ofJimmy Hoffa tried to use their knowledge of theCastro assassination plots to keep the Teamsterboss from goLng to jail in 1967 on a jury-tamper-ing conviction.Meanwhile, John Roselli was having problemsof his own. In May 1966, the FBI threatened tohave him deported unless he informed on Mafiaactivities. Roselli turned to his former CIA con-tact, who in turn talked to the FBL But his legalproblems didnt end. Neither did the CIAs.In March 1967, Drew Pearson and Jack Ander-son published two exp!osive columns based onleaks from Rosellis attorney. According to theiraccount, the Kennedys had tried to kill Castro,only to have the Cuban dictator retaliate on Nov.22, 1963. For the time being, the allegationspointed more to the Kennedys than the CIA. Butthe truth was dangerously near the surface. Andthe blackmail was forcing the governmentshand. As the FBIs liaison to the CIA observedbleakly, Rose!li and Giancana had the CIA "overa barrel" and the FBI wouldnt be able to touchthem as a result.The columns caught the attention of PresidentJohnson, who asked the CIA for a briefing. Thenext day, CIA director Richitrd Helms orderedhis inspector general to prepare a report onagency-sponsored assa~inafion plots.

The report--much of which remains highlyclassified--taffy labeled as n true" the Ander-son/~Pearson claim that "Robert Kennedy mayhave approved (the) plot." But it did highlightthe ongoing danger of further revelations, citingthe two columns as evidence that none of theMafiosi involved "would have compunctionsabout dragging in his CIA connections when hewas being pushed by law enforcement agencies."That conclusion appeared under the ominousheading, "Should we try to silence those who aretalking or might later?"

was the ~,To see how Nixon succumbed to the pressure,lets take another look at Robert Maheu, the manwho brought the CIA and the M afia ~ogether.By the mid-1960s, Maheu was firmlyentrenched as chief of Nevada operations forHoward Hughes. The eccentric billionaire, as hecame to be known, was investing incrediblesums m Las Vegas, buying up casinos, hotels,immense tracts of land, and politicians.Maheus superb mob contacts ensured Hugheshis pick of casino properties. But by 1968 themogul wanted more. He wanted to own thePresident of the United States."I want you to go see Nixon as my specialconfidential emissary," Hughes told Maheu. "Ifeel there is a really valid possibility of a Republi-can victory this year.., that could be real~edunder our sponsorship and supervision everyinch of the way." D,esl~,ite his bosss grandiosenotions, Maheu couldn t buy the elecfion~bnthe did contribute at least $50,000 to the Nixoncampaign.And the financial relationship didnt stop

there. After the election, Nixons f-dend Bebecontinued


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D A L L A SRebozo, the Florida banker, proposedthat Hughes ante up some more cash.This time, $I00,000 made its way intoRebozos coffers.Hughes seeros to have gotten his mon-eys worth. The federal government sud-denly began relaxing its antitrust enforce-merit, and regulatory relief arrived froma varie~ of agencies.The arrangement was too cozy forRebozos taste. When Hughes attorney,Ed Morgan, volunteered to deliver someof the Hughes cash directly to Nixon.Reboso demurred, on grounds that (as helater testified) "Ed Morgan representedDrew Pearson." Now there was some-thing to worry about. In 1960. the colum-nists revelation of the Hughes "loan" toNixons brother Donald had helped costPdchard the president~l election.Rebozo must have wondered what

P e a r s o n s s u c c e s s o r . J a c k A n d e r s o n - -w h o w a s a l s o r e p r e s e n t e d b y a v c o r n e yM o r g a n - - m i g h t r e v e a l t h i s t i m e a r o u n da b o u t t h e H u g h e s - N i x o n r e l a t i o n s h i p ,e s p e c i a l l y w i t h M o r g a n s o c l o s e t o t h eThe situation stayed under controluntil November 1970, when--after a bit-ter factional struggle within the Hughesorgamzation=-representatives of HowardHughes ordered the immediate firing ofRobert Maheu and his allies. OvernightMabeu found himself locked out. Hughesthought, and would later charge, thatMaheu had been robbing him blind.Maheu w a s o u t in the cold--but farfrom defenseless. He took with himsheafs of memos incriminating all sortsof people in everything from illegal politi-cal p@offs to CIA covert operations. (Re-member the Hughes~,,,,~- G l o m a r F ~ p ! o r er epi-

~ ULTIMATE IRONY WOlYt~ SIJI~ELy BE IFthe Warren Commission mn~s out tohave been right after all--if one lonenut. Lee Harve.v Oswald. "did it" on hisown, Dont count on it. Months ofd e t a i l e d p r o b i n g b y a s m a l l a r m y e finvestigators and scientists in 1977 and1978 convinced members of the HouseSelect Committee on Assa-csinations thatKennedy "was probably ~sassinated asa result of a conspiracy." Whoever didshoot the president is probably !ongdead, and those rasponsible for thecN_me arent going to talk. That leavesthe assassinologists with a free field forspeculation: Who really Idlled Kenn edy?I f y o u still beheve in the nut theory o fh i s t o r y , r u s h y o u r r e s u m e t o t h e N e ~ vYork Times. I n January 1979, a~erreporting experts" conclusious that"Second Gunman Almost CertainlyShot "at Kennedy," editors a~ thenations newspaper of record stilldenied there was any conspiracy, pre-ferring ~o envision "two mamacsms~ead of one." The Washingro~ Postno~ ro be outdone, speculated that "asmany as three or four social outcasts.with no ties to any one organization"just happened "in some spontaneousway" to develop "a common determi-nation to express their alienation in thekilling of President Kennedy," Howcomforting.The closest anyone has seriously cometo blaming the Soviet Union was

Edward J. Epstein in his I978 opusLegend: The Secret Life o Lee HarveyOswald. Epstein wove together a lot oft a n t a l i z i n g clues to suggest that Oswaldhad been recruited as a KGB agen~ inthe 1950s. and presumably continuedto serve the Soviet spy agency unti! hisdeath. But Epstein stopped short o fa l l e g i n g t h a t t l ~ e S o v i e t s u s e d O s w a l d t ok i l l K e n n e d y ; , a f t e r a l l . w h a t w o u l d t h e yhave gained? He cant quite explain.either, why the Soviets would employas a secret agent a man who paradedhis left-wing views on t elevis~n andr a d i o . T h e r e a l v a l u e o f t h e h o o k l i e s i ni t s r e v e l a t i o n s a b o u t t h e e x L T a o r d i n a r ydebates and bureaucratic wars wagedo v e r t h e s e q u e s t i o n s w i h L d n t h e C I A .The C u ~ n sThis theory suffers from the sameflaw--why choose Oswald?--but atleast there is a motive: Castro perhapssought revenge f o r a ~ the plots againsthis ow~ life. As we have seen, the"Cuban retaliation theory" first sur-faced in the Drew Pearson Jack Ander-son c o l u m n s . T h e H o u s e assassinatiouscommittee took it seriously but c o n -cluded that Castro would have changednothing and risked everythlng--includ-ing an American invasion of hisisIand--by murdering the president. Allof Oswalds significant associationswere with anti-Castro Cubans, notMarxists."the mob did it," concluded RobertBiakey, chief counse! o f the House


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sode?) He passed a great many of thememos on to Jack Andersons longtimefriend Hank Greenspun, publisher of theLos Vegas Sun. Maheu may have hopedto pressure the Hughes organization--through its political allies in the Nixonadministrafion--to reinstate him, or atleast to compensate him for his losses.Anderson pubhshed two new columnson CIA assassination plots in January1971. a month and a half after Maheusfiring, and during a fight by Ruselh toblock a deportation order. As before.Anderson suggested that the plots hadunleashed forces culminating in theassassination of John Kennedy. As before.the attorney for Roselli. Maheu andAnderson--Ed Morgan--supplied vitalinformation. Andersons columns servedwarmng that unless Maheu and Roselligot better treatment, the ax would fall

Sure enough, the CIA asked Immigra-tion to lay off Roselli to prevent "publicdisclosure of Rosellis past operationalactivity with CIA."For the White House, though, therewas a special complication. Maheu knewabout the Hughes payoffs to Nixon andmight tell Jack ~,A~,,derson. Worse yet, hemight tell larry O Brien, chairman of theDemocratic National Committee, whomMaheu had put on retainer to the Hughesorgandzation as a Washington represenra-five. The same day Andersons first col-urnn appeared, the White House beganinvestigating both Mabeu and OBrien.An assistant to White House counselJohn Dean, reacting to the Anderson col-umns, proposed examining Maheus"covert activities . . . with the CIA in theearly 1960s." But he also warned that anyattempt to discredit Larry continued

assassinations committee. "It is a his-torical truth." Blakeys committeedetermined that the crime chiefs ofNew Orleans and Tampa, Carlos Mar-cello and Santos Trafficame. were the"most likely family bosses . . . to haveparticipated in such a unilateral assassi-nation." Both had the "motive. meansand opportunity to have President Ken-nedy assassinated"; both hated the Ken-nedys for cracldng down on their rack-e~s: both issued death threats in front ofcredible witnesses; both had access toOswald and Ruby. Blakeys case worksbackward from Jack Ruby, indisputablya mob figure, whose murder of Oswald,can no longer be viewed as the impul-sive act of an irrational man. (Rubylater admitted that his lawyer inventedthat legal defense.) Someone obviouslymade him an offer he couldnt refuse.OK. but where does that leave Oswald?The House commi~ee never made aconvincing case for Oswald as Mafia hitman, But decide for yourself: ReadBlakeys own account {with RichardBillings), The Plot to Kill the President(1981) and David Scheims encyclope-dic Contracz on America: The Ma~iaMurders o/ John and Robert Kennedy(1983).

At least one ~hot almost ce~n~ c~ef r o m the "grassy knoll" in front o f Ken-nedys motorcade. Police who ran upthere in pursuit of the ldller met suited"Secret Service" agents who showedtheir IDs, The only trouble was. theSecret Service hadnt stationed any ofits agents there. Were they insteadArmy intelligence agents detailed topresidential security for the day? Werethey the assassins spotted by eyewit-nesses on the scene? Why did a local

Army intelligence unit claim falsely onNov. 22 that Oswald was a Cubandefector? We can only speculate,because the Army destroyed its files onOswald--a Fact the House assassina-tions committee called "extremelytroublesome." Given their hatred of theKen,n, edys (bordering on "purple pas-sion in the case of the man who ranthe CIA plots against Castro), theiraccess to killers and their ability tocover up afterward, certain govern-ment agents must be considered sus-pects in the case. Thats a lot different,however, from saying any of theseagencies knew of or approved any plotto bump off the president. AnthonySummers Conspiracy (1980), the bestsingle wink on the assassination, makesa convincing case for intelligenceinvolvement.Youve heard it before: Right-wing oilbillionaires teamed up with the Minute-men and Southern racists to gun downthe president. New Orleans D.A. JimGarrison liked this theory. The latesttwist came in 1977 when the CIAreleased a document concerning aFrench army deserter active in the fas-cist Secret Army Organization. whichplotted numerous times to kill Charlesde Gaulle. The man "had been expelledfrom the U.S. at Forth Worth or Dallas18 hours after the assassination of Pres-ident Kennedy" and indeed had beenin Dallas on Nov. 22. The French gov-ernment had wanted to know hiswhereabouts, so it could protect DeGaulles life during his planned trip toMexico. This report, even if innocuous,is a sobering remmder of how muchgoes on m the conspiratorial nether-world that we normally never evenguess at.

WEST November 20. 1983


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OBrien "might well shakeloose Republican skeletonsfrom the closet."Nixon didnt need to be toldwhat those skeletons were.Besides the potential damageof revelations about theHughes payoffs to Nixon in!968 and 1969, there was amuch bigger ghost to haunthim, Nixon had been WhiteHouse liaison to the C~A whenthe Bay of Pigs invasion wasplanned, and more--whenRobert Maheu signed on withthe CIA to kill Castro. Nixonmay or may not have knownabout the plots in 1960. Butthey were planned by menunder his supervision--a facthe might not care to haverevealed.On Jan. 24, 1972, Andersonpublished a shocking accountof the Hughes payoffs toRebozo, citing "documentaryevidence" he had seen. Rebozoassumed that Maheu was thesource of the leaks. He latertestified that Mabeu "knewabout it and he was having thisproblem with Hughes ... andhe was a friend of Morgans...had him on retainer. I felt thatis where it all came from."A few days later, the N ewYork Times reported thatAndersons friend Greenspun,the Las Vegas publisher, hadwads of Maheu memos in hissafe. The White House couldput two and two together.On Feb. 4, Attorney GeneralJohn Mitchell gathered his"Pltunbers Squad" around himand discussed plans for a politi-cal intelligence campaign.High on his list of targets: theGreeuspun safe. The WhiteHouse wanted those memosand would risk a burglary toget them. The Plumbers wentwest in April. They made anattempt to get into the safe,with help from a Hughes secu-~.ed?fficer, but apparently

The Feb. 4 meeting withMitchell produced another tar-get: Maheus friend aud Demo-cratic Party boss LarryOBrien. On June 17, theWatergate burglars werecaught red-handed, trying tobug OBriens office. Was thatfateful break-in thus just a con-tinuation of the effort to pre-vent Maheus leaks from sink-ing Nixons re-electionchances?So concluded anunpublished staff report by theSenate Watergate Committee.To this day, no one has

advanced a better explanation.The break-in, of course,sealed Nixons fate. The coun-terattack began three days afterthe capture of the burglars,when the Democratic NationalCommRtee filed suit againstthe Committee to Re-elect thePrasident--and here the storycomes frill circle. The DNCsattorney--Edward BennettWilliams--also representedNixons nemesis, the Washing-ton Post. In addition, williamshad represented CIA assassina-tion plotters Sam Giancanaand Jimmy Hoffa;-had been a!ongfime employer of RobertMaheu; and was the man whohad introduced Maheu to JohnReselli.On Sept. I5, 1972, the Presi-dent of the United States saidof Wi!liams: "I think we aregoing to fix the son-~-a-bitch... Weve got to, because hesa bad man . .. He misbehavedvery badly in the Hoffa case."But Nixon was the one who gotfixed.

~e Wate~ate b~ wereno ordina~ lot of ~ans.There w~ ~e s~ve ~ How-~d H~t, ~te~ sophi~cate,bosom buddy of William F.BucEey and hi~-~n~ng C~o~c~. He ~d been in ch~eof politi~ or~ni~g for ~eBay of Pigs inv~inn ~d w~one of ~e fi~ in ~e Agency top~pose ~l~g C~ro.Then ~ere w~ F~nk S~-~, self-described C~ro ~-sinafion ploRer, C~ ope~five~d sol~er of fore. JmmasMcCord had worked in ~eC~s ~ce of ~c~, ~erethe CIA-Mafia plots werehatched. E~enio ~ez hadmn h~dre~ of ~o~e ~-sions into Cuba. Be~ardB~ker ~d se~ed ~t on ~econ~nued on page 34


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LITTONE L E C T R O N I C T O U C H C O N T R O L ST W O M E M O R I E S , V A R I A B L E P O W E RD I G IT A L C L O C K A N D F O O D P R O B E

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t he VER Y BES T m A f t e r -Sa l e S e rv ice(~e~een 24~ & 25th off 10! Fr~way)

CIAs payroll until he was hand, Nixon would have haddropped in 1966 for dealing leverage ~ both thewith "certain gambling and and, he hoped, the Kennedycrimina] elements," as CIA wing of the Democratic party.director Richard Helms later But Helms--whom Hixoz~ firddput it. And so on. in the fall of 1972--neverConsider then, within _~_a,t_ would give it to him.context, President Nixen s Haldeman himseIf offers thea s t o n i s h i n g strategy f o r enlist- most intriguing explanation o fing the CIA in his cover-up. Helms discomfort. "WhenWhen the following White Nixon said. "Its likely to blowHouse conversation of June 23. the whole Bay o f P i g s t h i n g " he1972, finally became public, might have been remindingtwo years later, the "smoking Helms, not so gently, of thegun" was at hand and Nixon cover-up of the CIA assaasina-had to resign. But in the short tion attempts on... Fidel Cas-run, it served its purpose well: tro---a CIA operation that may"We protected (CIA director have triggered the KennedyRichard) Helms fi*om one hell t~gedy-and wh~cl~He]ms des-of a lot of things. (Hixon said) perately wanted to hide." That... Of course, this Hunt, that was the very hypothesis Ander-will uncover a lot of things, son had planted in his columnsYou open that scab theres a of January 1971.hell of a lot of things... If itgets out that this is al]involved, the Cuba thing, itwould be a fiasco. I~ wouldmake the CIA look bad, its ~ ~ ~going to make Hunt look bad, m~k@ ofand h is very likely to blow thewhole Bay of Pigs thing which We b ~we think would be very unfor- ~[~[~|~gtunate--both for CIA and for ~h~ ~ ~l~rd@r g[ ~ ~~the counwy, at this time, and i~ h~d @f $~ [h~ghfor American foreign policy... ~illfl~]~ @[ @~1@the problem is it tracks back tothe Bay o f Pigs." ~id~ ~ ~ ~$~@~Nixon was ordering a politi- d[~ @~cal cover-up on national secu- Twenty years after his deathrhy grounds--using the mos~ we still dont know who tdiledsensitive pressure he could Inhn Kennedy (see box, pagedev~e m pull the CIA along 16), although this Tuesdayswith him. And it worked, arm~versary is sure to produceWhen H.R. Haldeman renewed speculation on therelayed Nixons "Bay of Pigs" subject;,The "Casino retaliationcover-up threat to Helms on theory, for one, will not die.June 23, the reaction of the Resurrected again in the mid-CIA director was striking. 1970s by Jack Anderson. Hank"Turmoil in the room." Halde- Greenspun and the Rockefellerman recalled, "Helms gripping Commission on the CIA (onthe arms of his chair, leaning which Ronald Reags~ sat), itforward and shouting, ~he Bay still emerges from time to timeof Pigs had nothing to do with in the press, usually trotted outthis. I ha~ rm concern about by conservatives seeking to dis-the Bay of Pigs. " credit the Cuban leader.Yet the reference did the But in the absence of abso-bOb. For the next two weeks, lute proof, neither the retalia-oth Helms and his deputy, tion theory nor its more sinis-Gen. Vernon Waiters. asked ter counterpart, the rogue-the FBI to "desist from agent theory, any longer hasexpanding this investigation." the power to twist governmentJust what was the "Bay of agencies and warp public pol-Pigs thing" that prompted the icy. The reason ~s simple:CIA cover-up? Nixon had been Though the mystery remainstrying since 1971--without unsolved, the background ofsuccess--to force Helms to the case is now out in publicturn over to the White House a view. and thus no longer usefulcopy of the inspector generals as blackmail. American democ-report on the CIA assassination racy didnt collapse from theplots. (In his roman a clef, The official admission of CIACompany, John Ehrlichman crimes, nor did national secu-refers to this as the "Primula rity suffer. Truth and opennessReport.") With the report in served the country well.


8/9

evils can nowbe curbed, andcontained, it is only because, for a fewshort years, the "post-Watergate men-tality" opened a window on this dei:kquadrant of American politics.But the nation is fast returning tobusiness as usual. The unpublishedrecords of the House Select Committeethat th~ves in on ~inations have been put under~eltered from wraps for 50 years. More broadly, thepublic scrutiny and debate. Reagan administration is clampingSecret government--where the down on the Freedom of Information.laWns of natmnal security take pro- Act, unposmg stringent new classifica-cedence over common sense--breeds tion standards, and gagging~former guy-conspiracy and blackmail even as it eminent officia~,s. With the renewed

.wi~e~ d.em_oc~__cy. E ~oth the assassina- emphasis on covert operations"t~on o John F. K ennedy and the Water- abroad and domestic security at home,dece~t and m ampuLlation. To the e:~ent once agat~ continued

PAT BA R O N E

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Stair treads t~ke a pounding.Its a good idea to buy an extrafoot of carpeting for thbarea. Thiscan be folded under one or tworisers at the tops of the s~irs an dthis ~11 emble you to sh~ teecarpet down when wear hegira toshow. E xtra-heavy undetpaddingi s d s o a g o o d i d e a .For heaW tr d~ lanes, userunners or throw rugs. Extra

pieces of erall--to-w~ll carpetingare ideal here. Hav e the edgesbound and use t hem to he lpabsorb d aily wear at doorways, inhai ls, etc. Such pro tectors caneasily be taken up, f f you w~ sh,when guests are coming.

Finally, consider the same sortof p rotec t ion for areas wherefamily member s tend to eat anddrink, for instance wh ere childrentake their snacks in front of tee T/.


9/9

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its subsequent cover-uppossible.Until those institutions and

A note oa somces: This article quent blackma i l ef forts of thedid not depend on any "Deep CIA/Mafia plotters..Throat." Nearly all 6f the infor- The House Select Co_ mn~i.tteemarion here can be found--ff on Assassinations broadened oury~h look hard enough--in pub- knowledge of Jack Rubys linksed books or documents~ What to the CIA/Mafia milieu with ais new is the way the information 1,169-page study of organizedis put together, and put in con- crime and the assassination.text. Rubys background was previ-Ev en the argument, though, is ously explored by S eth Kantor--anot wholly original. I am particu- reporter for the Detroit News wh olariy indebted to Peter Dale had known Ruby in Dallas--inBao~s masterful--if arcane---llt- his biography, Who Was Jacktle book, Crime and Coverup R u g b y ? (Everest House., 1978).(Westworks. 1977). Sco tt. a for- xne H ouse assassinations corn-met Canadian diplomat and a mittec also published separateprofessor at UC-Berkeley, is a rec~ognized expert on the JFK assas-sination, Vietnam War and otheraspects of recent American politi-cal history. Other importantessays can be found in a collec-tion he edited with two col-leagues, Paul Hoch and RussellStetler (from whom I have alsolearned much), The Assassina-tions: Dallas and Beyond (Ran-dom House, 1976).

The bulk of the material usedfor the article came from denselyhctual and rarely read govern-ment reports. The most essentialof these were two studies pub-lished in the mid-70s by the Sen-ate Select Committee on Intelli-gence (the "Church committee").Book V of its final report, Theinvestigation of the Assassinationo[ President John F. Kennedy: Per-[ormance of the Intelligence Agen-cies, did more than expose howthe FBI, the CIA and the WhiteHouse sought to suppress themath. It also explored at lengththe Castro retaliation hypothesis,discussed government blackmailby participants in the CIA/Mafiaplots and aired new evidencelinking Oswald (through the NewOrleans training camps) to partic-ipants in those plots.The earlier interim report onAlleged Assassination Plots Involv-ing Foreign Leaders gave the pub-lic its first full discussion of thehistory of the CIA plots againstCastro--inchiding the Nov. 22,1963, meeting in Paris between atop CIA oi~cial and AMLA SH, thepotential assassin_ As is so oftenthe case, this report relegatedmuch of its most interesting

information to the footnotes,including details of the subsu-

staff smdias on Cuban exile activi-ties and the CIA plots against Cas-tro. This latter report addedimportant details to the history ofpost-assassination blackmailschemes. And it is here, buried ina footnote, that we learn that theCIA inspector generals 1967report on the plots raised the sin-ister question, "Should we try tosilence those who are talldng ormight later?" Sections of theinspector generals reportreleased by the CIA appear involume 4 of the House commit-tees hearing records. Most of thereport remains classifie&On Jimmy Hoffas role in theCIA/Mafia plots (and related mat-ters), see Dan Moldea, TheWar~ (Paddington Press, 1978).The Watergate part of the arti-cle drew heavily from an unpub-lished study by the Senate Water-gate Committee staff on the moti-various for the break-in itself (asubject that remains highly con-troversial). Another importantsource was volume 21 of the Sen-ate Watergate Committees hear-ings (on the "Hughes-RebozoInvestigation, and Related Mat-ters"), which includes the flurryof White House memos gener-ated by Jack Andersons 1971 rev-elations about Robert Maheusrole in the CIA/Mafia plots.Additional valuable materialon the White House came fromH.R. Haldemans The EndsPower (Times Books, 1978). Thedefinitive treatment of HowardHughes is Empire (W.W. Norton,I979), by two prize-wlnningreporters for the PhiladelphiaInquirer, Donald Bartlett andJames Steele. Also essential isElaine Davenports The HughesPapers (Sphere Books, 1976).

WEST November 20, 1983

dallas to watergate - the hidden connection

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