Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination
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• Killed execution-style in a Chicago delicatessen on the afternoon of December 20, 1973.
• Two assassins entered Rose’s Sandwich Shop on Chicago’s West Side and lined the customers and employees up with their faces to the wall. They made Richard Cain turn around and fired a sawed-off shotgun directly into his head at point-blank range.
• Linked directly to the JFK assassination by:
• Fabian Escalante: at the time of the assassination, Escalante was head of Counter-Intelligence for G2 (Cuban Intelligence, formally known as Cuban Department of State Security); he then became Director of the Cuban Security Studies Center and conducted an extensive re-examination of the JFK assassination, utilizing a wealth of sources and materials retained by Cuban Intelligence.
• The Giancana Family of Chicago claimed, in print, that Richard Cain was actually one of the shooters in Dallas.
• Author Claudia Furiati examined, in detail, the informant reports to G2 Cuban Intelligence, linking Cain to the assassination.
• Professor Peter Dale Scott implicates Cain (and Johnny Roselli, also Chicago Outfit) to the assassination via their anti-Cuban activities and further states that they both also “later professed knowledge about the assassination.”
Tangled Web (written by Cain’s brother) is an amazing recent addition to the literature that offers a rare “inside glimpse” to the world of the Mob.
We investigated the circumstances of his murder and here’s what we learned:
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
• Case has all the signs of a classic Mafia hit.
• Cain apparently did have sensitive knowledge that was highly pertinent to the JFK assassination, and was an informant to the FBI.
• However, the hit appears to be unrelated to the JFK cover-up. It was apparently the result of Cain’s efforts to take over the lucrative gambling operations on the South Side (there were rumors that he wanted to take over the whole Chicago Crime Family), internal mob disagreements over a robbery, and his inability to come to terms with old-school Chicago mobster, Marshall Caifano. Cain’s brother also obtained reliable eyewitness testimony that Richard Cain was in Chicago on November 22, 1963.
• The fact that Cain was a regular informant to the FBI does not appear to be the reason for his murder, because the Mob apparently did not learn of Cain’s talking to the FBI until after his death.
• The murder was apparently the result of an internal decision by mafia leadership. Cain was a made member of the mafia and, therefore, could not be murdered by renegade action of mobsters. Like Jimmy Hoffa, it had to be “sanctioned” from the top.
Chicago mobster Marshall Caifano appears to have set up the well-executed hit on Cain. It was Caifano who set up the “meet” at Rose’s Delicatessen (one of his regular hangouts) to discuss the matter of their “business problems.”
FURTHER RESEARCH
The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain- Chicago Cop and Mafia Hitman, Michael J. Cain, Skyhorse Publishing, 2009.
Double Cross: The Explosive, Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America, Sam Giancana & Chuck Giancana, Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.
JFK and Sam, Antoinette Giancana, John R. Hughes, DM OXON, MD, PHD & Thomas H. Jobe, MD, 2005.
ZR Rifle: The Plot to Kill Kennedy and Castro, Claudia Furiati, 1994.
Richard Cain: Biography, John Simkin, Spartacus Educational: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcainR.htm
Bringing It All Together: The New Releases and How They Help Us Converge On The Heart Of The Case, Peter Dale Scott, The Fourth Decade, Vol. 4, #1, November, 1996.
Who Killed Richard Cain?, Chicago Tribune, 23 December 1973, section 2, page four.
Cain played mob game and lost big, Chicago Tribune, 21 December 1973, page one.
Cain was on move with big schemes, Chicago Tribune, 28 December 1973, page sixteen.
Ex-Cop Cain shot to death, Chicago Tribune, 21 December 1973, page one.
Police seeking mystery woman in Cain slaying, Chicago Tribune, 22 December 1973,
page one.
Cain bugged hood’s home, Chicago Tribune, 22 December 1973, page three.
Victim
Sam Giancana, nationally powerful mobster headquartered in Chicago, with huge business interests in Nevada, Miami Beach, Hollywood, and Latin America
Cause of Death
Multiple gunshots to head
Official Verdict
Mob retaliation killing
Actual Circumstances
Giancana’s murder was directly linked to the fact he was being forced to testify (as we detail below, granting him immunity would have forced his testimony) and those with “exposure” in the JFK assassination could not allow that testimony to take place.
41
Sam “The Man”
Giancana,
June 19, 1975
Giancana was called “The Man” for one very simple reason: Because everybody knew that he was. Let’s put it this way: Even the most notorious hitman in the country, Chuck Nicoletti, differentiated from an ordinary hit and a contract “from ‘The Man’ himself.”1 The first was somewhat negotiable; the second was referred to as if it was chiseled onto a stone tablet and hand-delivered by no less than Moses himself.
And allow us make a very frank point here at the onset—it’s not just us that noted the important timing of Sam Giancana’s murder—it was the United States Congress:
The Church Committee found that one very important witness had been murdered a few days before he was to testify.
—Sam Giancana2
It is also extremely relevant that, due to a change in the law, which was basically a trick forcing mobsters to testify by granting them immunity when they refused to incriminate themselves, thereby eliminating the potential for self-incrimination and, hence, also eliminating any right to not answer questions—Giancana would have been compelled to testify: Due to a clever change in U.S. laws enacted by Congress in 1970, mobsters were forced into testifying by granting them immunity from prosecution when they attempted to “take the Fifth”—refuse to answer on the grounds that responding may tend to incriminate them, which is a protection granted by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The act of granting them immunity compelled them to answer since they were no longer subjecting themselves to incrimination. Therefore, Giancana could not have used “taking the Fifth” to avoid questions as mobsters had typically done—he would have been compelled to answer all questions put to him or be guilty of contempt.3
The timing of the Church Committee was crucial, as was the fact that the laws regarding testimony had changed so that one could no longer take the Fifth Amendment if one were given immunity. In other words, one could either assert one’s Fifth Amendment rights or have immunity, but not both. If Sam were given immunity, he would be compelled to testify. Giancana’s assassination occurred after the CIA discovered that he would be accepting immunity to talk to the Church Committee.4
Information gained by the 1975 Church Committee on CIA Activities led to the 1976 House Committee on Assassinations, which then drew important conclusions about Carlos Marcello. The Senate committee, chaired by Frank Church, was the first to reveal the dirty secrets of the CIA and the Mafia plot to murder Castro. John F. Kennedy had clearly ordered the CIA to kill Castro, and he and his brother had given their approval for a plot, called the AM/LASH plan, against Castro in 1963. According to a 1988 television interview with Judith Campbell, the president was clearly aware of the CIA-Mafia
1 Wim Dankbaar, Files on JFK (Trine Day: 2008), “Interview of James Files by Jim Marrs and Wim Dankbaar”
2 Antoinette Giancana, John R. Hughes, DM OXON, MD, Ph.D.& Thomas H. Jobe, MD, JFK and Sam: The Connection Between the Giancana and Kennedy Assassinations, (Cumberland House: 2005), 144.
3 Bruce G. Ohr, “Effective Methods to Combat Transnational Organized Crime in Criminal Justice Processes,” 2000-2001, page 54: http://www.unafei.or
.jp/english/pdf/PDF_rms/no58/58-05.pdf
4 Giancana, Hughes, DM OXON, MD, Ph.D.& Jobe, MD, JFK and Sam, 78.
plot, and the Church Committee found that this plot had never been reported by the FBI, CIA, or Robert F. Kennedy to the Warren Commission.1
As the old expression goes, the plot thickens:
This same committee discovered the affairs between Campbell and John F. Kennedy, and between Campbell and Sam Giancana. These discoveries led to a subcommittee study of the relationship of the FBI and CIA to the John F. Kennedy assassination, resulting in a collapse of the public’s faith in the Warren Report. Senators Richard Schweiker and Gary Hart reportedly found that the FBI and the CIA had misled the Warren Commission to prevent the truth about the assassination from coming to light.2
It has been widely reported that help from the Chicago mob in general, and Giancana in particular, were recruited by Joseph Kennedy and that help was largely responsible for delivering the very close presidential election to JFK in 1960:
Many historians believe that ballot stuffing in Chicago (then under the control of old-school Democrat Mayor, Richard Daley) helped ensure Kennedy’s election in 1960. Giancana himself reportedly claimed that he had helped run a vote-stealing scam in Cook County, Illinois, a district that had been the deciding factor in Kennedy’s victory. On the other hand, there are also persistent rumors of Mafia involvement in JFK’s 1963 assassination, perhaps as revenge for what they saw as the ingratitude of the Kennedys in the form of RFK’s crusade against organized crime.3
Hence, the logic goes, Giancana and the mafia were double-crossed by the Kennedy Administration’s war on organized crime:
Giancana was next called to testify before a United States Senate committee investigating Mafia involvement in a failed CIA plot to assassinate
Castro. Before he was scheduled to testify, Giancana flew to Houston,
Texas, and underwent gall bladder surgery. He returned to his Oak Park home on June 17, 1975. Two days later, Sam Giancana was shot once in the back of the head and several more times up through the chin with a .22-caliber pistol while cooking in his basement. Though theories abounded as to who killed him (rival mafiosi, CIA operatives nervous about his future testimony, one of many former girlfriends), no one was ever arrested in connection with the murder.4
Antoinette Giancana believes that John F. Kennedy double-crossed
her father by not giving him the protection he needed after Kennedy’s
1 Ibid.
2 Ibid, 144.
3 “Sam Giancana: Biography,” accessed 11 Nov 2012, bio. True Story, A+E Networks, http://www.biography.com/people/sam-giancana-9542088?page=2
4 “Sam Giancana: Biography,” accessed 11 Nov 2012, bio. True Story, A+E Networks, http://www.biography.com/people/sam-giancana-9542088?page=3
election in 1960. It is her strong belief that the mob helped to kill Kennedy and the government (CIA) killed her father.1
Giancana, who was directly connected to Jack Ruby (who was originally from Chicago), is said to have provided a linkage between the New Orleans mob under Carlos Marcello (who hated the Kennedys because of prior attacks by Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General), the Dallas assets, who would come into play in 1963, and Trafficante, with his JM/WAVE (CIA station in Florida that was base for its anti-Castro operations) connections. It was Giancana who, after manipulating of the Illinois ballot boxes during the 1960 election, swung Kennedy’s victory over Nixon. Now that Bobby Kennedy was attacking the Mafia—even though J. Edgar Hoover insisted there was no Mafia inside the U.S.—Giancana (as did the other Mafia bosses) felt betrayed.2
Congressional investigators knew that Giancana was linked to the JFK assassination and ordered him to testify. On June 19, 1975, very shortly before that testimony would have taken place, Giancana was gunned down in the basement kitchen of his quiet suburban Chicago home while frying sausages.
In addition to a massive wound at the back of the head, Giancana was also shot six times, in a circle, around the mouth. That has been interpreted as a very obvious message that the same fate awaited anyone who talked.
The perplexing part of the case is that even the police say that “it didn’t look like a mafia hit.”3 Yet few mob bosses were more careful than Sam Giancana and, as many have noted, he never would have opened his door and let his killer in unless it was someone whom he knew and trusted.
Giancana’s home was also under surveillance:
Attorney General Robert Kennedy had Giancana’s home in Oak Park placed under twenty-four-hour surveillance in 1963.4
Plus, the Oak Park enclave was commonly referred to as an “impenetrable fortress”:
That night, while cooking in the kitchen of his Chicago home—which was described by many as a “fortress” or “bunker”—Giancana came under the gun. According to both his daughter and the police, who stated that Giancana was invulnerable in his own home due to the security systems and impregnability of the structure, only someone he knew or trusted could have gotten to him. Giancana would have to have let them in, gone back to cooking, and then been surprised when the assailant—or
assailants—pulled a .22 pistol.5
1 Giancana, Hughes, DM OXON, MD, Ph.D.& Jobe, MD, JFK and Sam, 78.
2 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 104.
3 Malcom Abrams, “30 Watergate Witnesses Have Met Violent Deaths,” 12 July 1976, Midnight Magazine: http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Watergate%20Deaths.html
4 “Sam Giancana: Biography,” accessed 11 Nov 2012, bio. True Story: http://www.biography.com/people/sam-giancana-9542088?page=2
5 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 105.
Others associated with Giancana’s anti-Castro efforts in concert with the CIA, also began to die convenient deaths. The closest two were Johnny Roselli and Chuck Nicoletti, Giancana’s top lieutenant and most notorious hitman, “respectively.”
Johnny Roselli was the next to die. Roselli met with Schweiker and other committee members in the Carroll Arms Hotel in Washington D.C. He indicated that he had good reason to believe that Cuban associates of Castro and Trafficante (Florida mafia boss who was also part of the CIA-mafia plot to assassinate Castro) were involved in the Kennedy assassination and that he would testify to these facts. Ten days after a dinner with Santo Trafficante, Roselli was murdered, presumably on a yacht belonging to a Trafficante associate; his dismembered body was dumped into the ocean in an oil drum.1
Giancana’s close associate Chuckie Nicoletti was murdered in 1977,
immediately after the House Select Committee determined he would be called for testimony. George de Mohrenschildt, adviser to the CIA and the mob and a friend of Oswald, had also been scheduled to testify in 1977, but he died on the day he was to be questioned regarding the murder of John F. Kennedy.2
The incredible “timeliness” of the convenient deaths was not lost on the United States Congress:
The sudden deaths of Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli and the alleged heart attack of the CIA’s William Harvey, the official in charge of the CIA-mafia plot against Castro, helped to stimulate the formation of a committee to reinvestigate the Kennedy assassination. The Ninety-fourth Congress in September 1976 put together the House Select Committee on Assassinations to reinvestigate the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations. The committee’s final report indicated that Carlos Marcello had “probable complicity above all others.”3
Take a gander at the dates laid out in the following timeline to get a better grip on the dramatic goings-on that took place within a very narrow time window:
1 Giancana, Hughes, DM OXON, MD, Ph.D.& Jobe, MD, JFK and Sam, 144.
2 Ibid, 80.
3 Ibid, 145.
April 7, 1975
Nelson Rockefeller chairs hearings on the CIA’s involvement in assassinations.
June 9, 1975
The U.S. Senate’s Church Committee takes testimony on the CIA’s use of the mafia for assistance with assassinations.<
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June 19, 1975
The CIA plot to assassinate Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro, is made public in both the Chicago Tribune and New York Times.
June 19, 1975
Members of the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee arrive in Chicago for the purpose of escorting Sam Giancana to Washington for his appearance before the committee.
June 19, 1975, 9:00 p.m.
Two “law enforcement officers” are observed outside Sam Giancana’s home by his neighbors in Oak Park, a wealthy suburb of Chicago.
June 19, 1975, 11:15 p.m.
Three surveillance cars reportedly leave the area of Sam Giancana’s home.
June 19, 1975, 11:30 p.m.
Sam Giancana is murdered inside his home.
June 20, 1975
The Chicago Tribune reports the murder of Sam Giancana. Allegations are made that the murder was sanctioned by the CIA.
June 21, 1975
The Chicago Tribune reports that Giancana’s house was under surveillance on the night that he was killed.
June 24, 1975
Johnny Roselli testifies to the Church Committee. June 24, 1975, was also the day that Sam Giancana had been scheduled to testify.
July 30, 1975
Jimmy Hoffa disappears. Several reliable sources indicated that Hoffa had been involved with national mob bosses Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante in the plot to assassinate President Kennedy.