Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups
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THE SMOKING GUN OF THE COVER-UP:
The following is a verbatim copy of the Justice Department memo from the Acting Attorney General of the United States to President Johnson aide Bill Moyers (written shortly after Oswald was murdered), documenting the cover—up in the historical record:
November 25, 1963
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MOYERS
It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.
1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.
2. Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat—too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.
3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumour and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.
I think this objective may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to inconsistencies between this report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job.
The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and disadvantages. I think it can await publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad.
I think, however, that a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.
Nicholas deB. Katzenbach
Deputy Attorney General
(R) - ITEM IS RESTRICTED
The cover-up was apparently necessitated by the exposure and implication of covert U.S. intelligence anti-Castro operations which were utilizing the Mafia to attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. It is an often overlooked fact that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Robert F. Kennedy was the most powerful person in the United States—more so than even new President Lyndon B. Johnson. In the hours after the murder, it was Robert Kennedy and Kennedy loyalists who controlled the autopsy, the doctors, the body of President Kennedy, and the actions of much of the Secret Service, law enforcement, and emergency personnel. It was also Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department which ultimately controlled the evidence and instituted the cover-up process via the memo from Deputy Attorney General Nick Katzenbach stating that the imperative and overriding directive was that the public must believe that Oswald acted alone. Obviously, Robert Kennedy was not involved in the death plot against his brother. But just as obviously, his hand was forced into covering up the true circumstances surrounding the murder. It was through his office, from those loyal to both he and President Kennedy, and at times at his own direction, that the actual facts concerning the assassination were intentionally (and necessarily, from their standpoint) obscured.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency engaged in a cover-up of highly relevant information when the Warren Commission was investigating President John Kennedy’s assassination ... President Johnson and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy became party to the effort which consisted of withholding key facts from the Warren Commission.”265
Investigation and analysis by the CIA’s John Stockwell noted that:
“After the shooting stopped, the convoy raced away. The FBI and other branches of the government immediately launched the coverup. The new President, Lyndon Johnson, ordered the limousine in which Kennedy was killed be flown to Chicago and destroyed. The announced goal of President Johnson was to ‘reassure’ the nation by proving that the killing was the work of lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.”
“ ... CIA operatives far from Dallas were waiting with biographic information about Oswald to feed to the media.”266
CONCLUSIONS
We do not know with exact certainty how President Kennedy was murdered, but we most certainly do know with exact certainty how he was not murdered. We know what did not happen. We know (and with certainty) that Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone did not do it because the evidence proves conclusively he could not have:
1. Frontal shots preclude the possibility of a single shooter.
2. Oswald was incapable of doing the shooting. The best combat snipers in history tried to match the shots/hits attributed to Oswald and could not do it. And Oswald wasn’t even in the same league with them as a shooter. Oswald’s fellow Marines judged him a “rather poor shot.”
3. There were far too many shots fired (more than the shots that the Warren Commission focused upon by completely ignoring the others) to have come from one shooter alone.
4. Oswald was operational in U.S. Military Intelligence.267 The “Hidell” operational cover name was not being used only by Oswald—it was what is termed a “floating alias” in covert intelligence, and was also being used by other operatives in Military Intelligence.268
5. A blatant Government cover-up followed, intentionally obfuscating the facts, particularly concerning Oswald’s involvement in the anti- Castro operations of the U.S. intelligence community.
Zack Shelton was a twenty-eight year FBI veteran, twenty-five of those years as a Special Agent. Special Agent Shelton was part of the Organized Crime squad in Kansas City for four and a half years and the Organized Crime squad in Chicago for eight years. He was part of many high-profile investigations, including the FBI team that ran the Mob “skimming” operation out of Las Vegas in the infamous “Strawman Operation” (upon which the film Casino was based); the team that solved the truck-dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas; the capture of the armed robbers who held up the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas; and the arrest of a corrupt Texas sheriff for drug smuggling. He’s an expert on criminal investigation who knows where to look and what to look at when he gets there. Put simply, he’s very familiar with the territory.269
Shelton was hired by Wim Dankbaar, a wealthy Dutch industrialist, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the JFK assassination and attempt to reach fact-based conclusions based upon his investigation. The lengthy investigation by Shelton revealed a long collection of Organized Crime confessions—culled from FBI wiretaps, reliable informants, and cooperating witnesses—which reveal direct Mafia involvement in the assassination of the 35th President of the United States. Therefore, it is not a matter of it being his personal opinion, it is based on the results of a professional who went where the evidence led him. As former Special Agent Shelton puts it:
“I don’t have any theories. All I have are the facts.”270
The following is former Special Agent Shelton’s summary of the evidence obtained from his lengthy investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy:
Z. Shelton & Associates, Inc.
THE SHELTON REPORT:
▸ Summary of Facts in the JFK Assassination
Prepared by:
Z. Shelton & Associates, Inc.
Zechariah Shelton
Investigator; twenty-five year FBI Special Agent, retired.
The following are the results of my extensive investigation into the evidence in the JFK assassination.
In summarizing the JFK Assassination, one must look at the fact
s, not at theories. The following are the irrefutable facts that have surfaced in my investigation. This is a summary of my investigation, spotlighting significant events that led to the assassination, the events of the day and the cover-up, which indicate that there was a conspiracy to kill the president.
April-November 21, 1963
Chauncey Holt
(CIA Operative) Approximately April of 1963—Holt begins to produce IDs for Lee Harvey Oswald, including all of his aliases.
June—Travels to New Orleans, Louisiana to deliver the IDs to Guy Bannister. Holt is photographed by news reporters in the same photo with Oswald.
September-October—Holt is instructed by his handler to prepare Secret Service Identification Pins for the President’s trip to Dallas.
November 16—Holt receives a letter from Peter Licavoli stating that Chuck Nicoletti is at the Grace Ranch in Arizona and for Holt to come and drive Nicoletti to Dallas.
November 21 - Holt drives Nicoletti to Dallas.
Jack Ruby Had extensive and numerous connections to Organized Crime throughout his adult life. He worked directly for Sam Giancana of Chicago Mafia (see Brandt, 2004), was connected to New Orleans Mafia, led at the time by Carlos Marcello; also closely associated with Organized Crime in Dallas.
September through November 1963 Numerous out-of-state telephone calls are placed by Ruby to well-known Mafia figures. These calls are twenty-five times the amount of calls placed during other periods of 1963. The last week before the assassination, Ruby is visited by numerous well-known Mafia figures in Dallas. (see Scheim, 1991; Waldron & Hart- mann, 2005)
Carlos Marcello
Jimmy Hoffa
Santo Traficante Within months before the assassination, these three individuals were making death threats against the President. These comments came from reliable Federal Sources.
James Files (see Scheim, 1991; Waldron & Hartmann, 2005) Approximately six months before the assassination, Files receives word from Chuck Nicoletti that they have a contract to kill President Kennedy. There was a meeting at Tony Accardo’s house and present were Accardo, Giacanna and Nicoletti. Nicoletti left the meeting and informed Files.
Jim Wagner Jim Wagner is a retired FBI Organized Crime Supervisor from Chicago. In September of 1963, a reliable informant stated that Tony Accardo sent $100,000.00 to Mexico City to finance an operation. This fact comes directly from the files of the FBI.
November 22, 1963
Chauncey Holt Drove Chuck Nicoletti into Dallas. According to Files, Nicoletti was one of the four on the hit team. Holt delivers the Secret Service Pins. He drives into the railroad yard in a white 1959 Oldsmobile Station Wagon. This is corroborated by the testimony of Bowers. Holt was instructed to go into Dealey Plaza and participate in an anti-Castro demonstration and if there was a problem, he was to report to a designated boxcar. He stated that Dealey Plaza looked like “Old Home Week”. This meant that there were a lot of CIA Operatives in Dealey Plaza. Files also reported some of the names that Holt mentioned. When the shots rang out, he reported to the boxcar as instructed and met with Charles Harrelson and Charles Rogers (known to Holt as Richard Montoya). All three of these individuals were detained by the Dallas Police Department and later released. Several photographs were taken of these three men and they are known as the three tramps. Lois Gibson, respected forensic artist, verifies the three as Holt and Charles Harrelson and Charles Rogers, two violent criminals.
Tosh Plumlee He states that he was a CIA pilot and flew John Roselli into Dallas on the morning of the assassination. This flight was a military flight. Files corroborates this when he says that Roselli arrived in Dallas on a military aircraft.
James Files He states that he drove into Dealey Plaza in Nicoletti’s vehicle, a 1963 Chevy Impala Super Sport, white over maroon. He drove Roselli and Nicoletti and parked face in, on the side of the Dal-Tex Building. The Beztner film shows the vehicle parked where Files says it was. Files stated he took the head shot from the grassy knoll behind the picket fence. Where he says he stood, the House Select Committee puts a shooter by means of an acoustic test. Files smoked Pall Mall Cigarettes and there were the same brand found where he says he was standing. Bowers saw an individual by the picket fence. Files says Dealey Plaza looked like “Old Home Week” and mentions three or four names, as did Chauncey Holt. Files states he shot with an XP 100 Fireball with a .222 cartridge. He bit into a .222 casing and left it at the scene. Gary Radermaker found a .222 casing in 1987 that had a tooth mark in it. Files stated that it was he, Roselli, Nicoletti and one other individual who were the hit team that day.
Zapruder Film This film clearly shows Kennedy’s head vio-lently pushed to the left rear when the headshot occurred. This provides evidence that the headshot came from the right front.
The Irrefutable
Testi mony Of Holt,
Plumlee And Files Three separate testimonies, from Chauncey Holt,Tosh Plumlee and James Files, all cross-corrobo- rate each other. There is no way each individual could have known what the other person had said or was going to say, yet they all said the same thing.
Witnesses in Dealey
Plaza The majority of the witnesses in the Plaza said there were shots from the grassy knoll.
The Mary Moorman
Photograph At the exact same spot where Files said he shot and the House Select Committee said the shooter was, is a figure in the photograph behind the picket fence.
After November 22, 1963
House Select
Committee The Acoustic Test proved that there was a shot from the grassy knoll and it came from the exact spot where Files says he was standing. (House Select Committee on Assassinations, 1978)
Bill Bonanno He states in Bound By Honor (Bonanno, 1999) that Roselli confessed to him about killing Kennedy and there were four people on the hit team.
Sam Giancana
John Roselli They state in Double Cross (Giancana & Giancana, 1993) that Roselli was in on the hit of Kennedy.
Chuck Nicoletti Roselli expressed direct knowledge about his and other Mafia involvement in the JFK assassination, on several occasions. (Washington Post, 1976; House Select Committee on Assassinations, 1978).
Sam Giancana
John Roselli
Chuck Nicoletti All three were scheduled to testify before Congress. All three were murdered just prior to their dates to testify. All three had established involvement in the CIA-Mafia plot to kill Fidel Castro and in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Carlos Marcello
Santo Trafficante FBI documents reveal that Marcello confessed his involvement in the JFK assassination on several occasions (see FBI Document 124-1018210430; Waldron & Hartmann, 2005; O’Leary & Seymour, 2003). FBI wiretaps reveal Trafficante expressed knowledge of his involvement, even making a deathbed statement to his attorney. (see Ragano & Raab, 1994; Waldron & Hartmann, 2005)
Joe Granata Joseph Granata was a member of the Chicago crime family and close associate of Chuck Nico- letti. Granata became an FBI informant and a reliable witness against Organized Crime, who went into the Federal Witness Protection Program. Granata has verified the involvement of Roselli, Nicoletti, Marshall Caifano and Jimmy Sutton (a.k.a. James Files) in the assassination of President Kennedy. Granata verified that Chuck Nicoletti, top hit man for the Chicago Mafia, confided in him, on several occasions, the involvement of Nicoletti, Roselli, Sutton and Caifano, whom Nicoletti stated were all in Dealey Plaza with him at the time of the murder when “We blew his brains out.” (Dankbaar; 2006)
Frank Sheeran Frank Sheeran was a notorious Mafia hit man and Jimmy Hoffa associate. Sheeran made deathbed confessions in I Heard You Paint Houses (2004) and many experienced law enforcement officials give veracity to his accounts. Sheeran stated that he and Hoffa provided “high-powered rifles for the Kennedy hit in Dallas”. Sheeran also stated that Hoffa confessed high-level Mafia involvement in the JFK assassination, stating: “They had fake cops and real cops involved in it. Jack Ruby’s cops were su
pposed to take care of Oswald but Ruby bungled it. That’s why he had to go in and finish the job on Oswald. If he didn’t take care of Oswald, what do you think they would have done to him—put Ruby on a meat hook. Don’t kid yourself. Santo and Carlos and Giancana and some of their element, they were all in on Kennedy. Every single one of the same cast of characters that were in on the Bay of Pigs. They even had a plot to kill Castro with Momo (Giancana) and Roselli.” (see Brandt, 2004)
Possible Scenarios
An electrifying realization occurs when we challenge our assumptions about the JFK assassination. We always assume that the operation was successful because it ended in the death of President Kennedy. But what if it was unsuccessful? What if that wasn’t the complete end goal? What if it was also trying to accomplish something else? Then, suddenly, all the crazy pieces of the puzzle magically fit right together. What had seemed to be going in two different directions at the same time has then only been going in one all along. Allow us to explain.
It has become apparent that there were actually two aims of the assassination. One was to kill JFK and the other was—by making it look like Cuba was to blame for it—necessitating an invasion of the island of Cuba. Under that matrix, suddenly everything adds up clearly. Under that matrix, the actions of RFK covering up the real circumstances of his own brother’s murder make complete and concrete sense. Then, covering up Oswald’s links to U.S. Intelligence suddenly becomes comprehensible. The obvious “national security” cover-up that followed is then logical. If we look at the events through that refreshed perspective, we begin to finally understand what it really is that we’ve been looking at all this time. There’s more on that point below.