by Mark Shaw
Ironically, a few years later when JFK was battling Vice-President Richard Nixon for the presidency, credible sources confirm Kennedy family patriarch Joe Kennedy realized an important fact: his son would lose the election unless he won West Virginia and Illinois. Without these state’s electoral votes in JFK’s column, the race was doomed.
To get help, Joe knew where to look. Chicago-based mobster Giancana and his underworld friends like Marcello had connections to the unions and politicians. Most important, millions in cash distributed by underworld emissaries produced votes.
Desperate, Joe recruited family friend Frank Sinatra, Kilgallen’s foe. He became the intermediary to solicit the mobster’s assistance63 with money and power in West Virginia but especially in Chicago.
In his book, My Way, popular singer Paul Anka (“Diana,” “Put Your Head on my Shoulder,” “Puppy Love”), who crossed paths with Giancana, wrote, “Everybody knew the Mafia boss from Chicago was someone not to be messed with…he had a violent MO…the bottom line is, Sam was a murderer.”
To gain Giancana’s help despite his seedy reputation, (at one point the Mafia Don shared girlfriend Judith Campbell with JFK), the Kennedy patriarch promised something in return—if JFK became president, the new administration would tread lightly on any Mafia investigations.
Joe Kennedy’s strategy worked. JFK won both West Virginia and Illinois, and was elected president. He beat Vice-President Richard Nixon by the slimmest of margins (112,827 votes out of 68 million-plus; 0.16%; 303 electoral votes to 219). Later, Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s secretary admitted, “They [the Kennedy’s] stole the election.”
When John Kennedy entered the White House, Giancana, Marcello, Cohen, Frank Costello and Trafficante expected Joe to keep his word. He did not.
According to Kennedy family confidante John Seigenthaler’s disclosures to this author, Joe actually ordered JFK to appoint Bobby Attorney General.64 Joe did so even though he knew, based on RFK’s relentless pursuit of Mafia figures, including Marcello, during the McClellan racketeering hearings, Bobby would relentlessly pursue the mobsters. In the eyes of the dangerous underworld figures, Joe had double-crossed them.65 66
Predictably, Bobby began a crusade to prosecute the mobsters as early as April 1961. Without warning, unceremoniously, and arguably illegally, RFK and the Justice Department deported Marcello to Central America. After being thrown out of Guatemala, he wandered through the jungle nearly dying before surreptitiously re-entering the United States. One may one imagine the rage Marcello exhibited with revenge a certainty. As acclaimed author Nick Pileggi (Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family (movie Goodfellas) and Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas) told this author, “Marcello was Sicilian, but born in Tunisia and grew up with both Sicilian and Arabic vendetta tendencies. He was not a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy. Fury and revenge were his credo.”
While Giancana, Cohen, Costello, and Trafficante looked on, RFK’s relentless pursuit of Marcello, who had embarrassed Bobby by re-entering the U.S. after being deported, continued. The Justice Department renewed deportation charges against the New Orleans Don. They also charged him with conspiracy to defraud the government in New Orleans Federal court.
As the fall of 1963 approached, Marcello’s back was against the wall; he had exhausted every deportation appeal. He also faced the conspiracy charges trial. Considerable prison time was possible if convicted. Desperate with no way out, his freedom and multimillion-dollar empire at risk, the Don had no choice but to take action with the only question whether to eliminate Bobby, his chief nemesis, or the president.
Why kill John Kennedy instead of Bobby whom Marcello despised? Simple common sense dictates that the clever Mafioso knew if he eliminated Bobby, JFK would use all of the government’s resources to come after him. However, if JFK was assassinated, then RFK would be rendered powerless.67 68
New Orleans Don Carlos Marcello being deported by U.S. Immigration under orders from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
Predictably, this was exactly what happened. Within a short time after JFK was dead, a victim of his father and brother’s poisonous misdeeds not his own, RFK disbanded the Justice Department’s organized crime division specifically intended to put mobsters like Marcello out of business.”69 Common sense indicates that Bobby must have realized that he was the real target of Marcello’s vengeance, not his brother, the president.70 This is what led to RFK’s guilt, his readings of the Greek classics and the Bible, his mention of the Mafia and Marcello to colleagues, and his inability to function after the assassination. Bobby knew JFK should have never died, never have been assassinated, that the wrong man had paid the ultimate penalty.
If there remains any doubt regarding the ludicrous nature of the “Oswald Alone” theory Kilgallen questioned, it should have been dismissed once and for all after Robert Kennedy Jr. confirmed his father’s suspicions during a January 2013 interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose. RFK Jr. said his father told him he believed the Warren Commission report was “a shoddy piece of craftsmanship.” RFK Jr. also stated, “[Dad] spent a year trying to come to grips with my uncle’s death, reading the work of Greek philosophers, Catholic scholars, Henry David Thoreau, poets and others trying to figure out the existential implications of why a just God would allow injustice to happen of the magnitude he was seeing.”
Regarding the mechanics of JFK’s assassination, RFK Jr. said his father believed the evidence was “very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman [who shot JFK].” When Rose asked if he believed that RFK “felt some sense of guilt because he thought there might have been a link between his very aggressive efforts against organized crime,” RFK Jr. said his father, “had investigators do research into the assassination and found that phone records of Oswald and nightclub owner Jack Ruby…‘were like an inventory’ of Mafia leaders the government had been investigating.” Common sense logic dictates this “inventory” must have included Carlos Marcello whom RFK had bird-dogged from the outset of his being named attorney general.
If RFK Jr. had learned of presidential confidante Kenneth O’Donnell’s account, previously mentioned, Bobby’s son would have realized that words from his own father’s mouth regarding RFK’s suspicions about Marcello, “the New Orleans capo to whom Jack Ruby had ties,” to an unimpeachable source like O’Donnell confirmed what Bobby had told his son.
Continuing to explore the plausibility that Marcello orchestrated JFK’s death, it follows that one of Marcello’s soldiers, Mafia low-life Jack Ruby, an ally of Marcello’s Dallas crime underlings Joe Civello71 and Joe Campisi, became the assassin to eliminate Oswald, one of Marcello’s operatives hired to kill the president. This was necessary since Oswald could not be trusted to keep his mouth shut. He was a loose end and Marcello could not afford loose ends.
With Oswald eliminated, Ruby had to be silenced, and killing him in a Dallas jail cell was out of the question. Next best was to threaten the seedy nightclub owner if he talked and thus the first visitor to his jail cell was Campisi.72 To placate Ruby, Campisi informed Oswald’s killer that help was on the way through an attorney that was the mob controlled.
Kilgallen’s soon-to-be “friend,” Melvin Belli, fit that bill since he certainly was “mob approved.” Former Belli legal associate John O’Connor told this author, “Mel was tight with Mickey Cohen and talked about him all the time. He certainly was one with connections [to the underworld] and my understanding was that he was approved as ‘okay’ by the mob.” Seymour Ellison, the former partner who accompanied Belli to Las Vegas on several occasions, told this author, “Mel loved the mob and they loved him.” Another Belli associate who wishes to remain anonymous said, “Mel was intoxicated with the Mafia,” he told this author. “He loved the power, the money, the irreverence they had for authority just like he did.”
Based on his being “mob approved,” Belli, Mickey Cohen’s attorney, had been ordered at the behest of Marcello, through Cohen,
to discredit and silence Ruby. Belli did so by employing the ludicrous “psychomotor epilepsy insanity defense.” It made Ruby look crazy in the eyes of nearly anyone who later investigated the assassinations. Belli then prevented Ruby from testifying despite his client’s requests to do so. Ruby was no longer a loose end of concern to Marcello. End of story with Belli having done his job.
Based on her columns and articles, one may certainly assume this same scenario must have occurred to Kilgallen who, through her two exclusive interview with Ruby, realized the insanity defense was a joke, a cruel joke that could have sent Ruby to the electric chair. She had realized at Ruby’s trial that the famous attorney’s representation of Ruby was a farce, a ruse as evidenced by his own admissions to friend and chauffer Milton Hunt that the Ruby case was “fixed…it’s a whitewash.”
Curiously, according to Nancy Ragano (the wife of Frank Ragano, attorney for mobsters Marcello and Santo Trafficante and Teamsters boss James Hoffa), Frank and Belli were very close friends to the extent of Belli representing Frank when he sued Time Magazine for libel a few years after the JFK assassination. When Frank told Trafficante about his hiring Belli, the mobster said, “Listen, whatever you do, don’t ask him about Jack Ruby. It’s none of your business.” Nancy said her husband never interrogated Belli fearing his client’s wrath if he delved into Belli’s representation of Ruby.
In effect, Marcello’s clever plan prevented any investigation toward other suspects who were involved in the assassinations. With JFK eliminated, Bobby powerless, and the mob-friendly LBJ in the White House, the Mafia Don was safe from deportation. Only one problem existed: Dorothy Mae Kilgallen, who kept digging into JFK and Oswald’s deaths. That Kilgallen called Ruby a “gangster” in one column lends credibility to her suspicions he was connected to the underworld. This, arguably, was the first clue Kilgallen had leading to her belief that what she had been calling a “conspiracy” surrounding the JFK and Oswald assassinations had all of the earmarks of a successful mob operation based on revenge.73 74
Since Kilgallen was acquainted with mobsters, had covered mob trials, and thus knew of their ruthlessness, it is not a stretch to believe she suspected JFK had been “hit” based on mobster retaliation for Bobby Kennedy’s obsession to eliminate organized crime figures, specifically Marcello. Then one of the “hitmen,” Oswald, had been “hit” by Ruby and that “hitman’s” mental state muddied and silenced by Belli when he employed the insanity defense at Ruby’s trial.
Recall Belli, apparently confused during Ruby’s trial, calling his client “Oswald” several times to the dismay of the judge, something Kilgallen would have noticed as well. No surprise there since when Belli learned Oswald had been shot, recall that he told friend J. Kelly Farris, “Well, since Oswald’s dead, I’ll have to defend Ruby,” a telling remark that lends credence to believing Belli had been “on call” to defend anyone apprehended after JFK was killed. Whether the mob-connected Belli was aware of the plot to assassinate the president is unknown but his own words to Farris point in that direction.
Kilgallen’s trial interviews with Jack Ruby are significant. Aside from the one column she wrote describing Ruby’s emotions during his trial, Kilgallen never divulged the exact nature of what Oswald’s killer told him. However, Joe Tonahill stated, in his videotaped interview, “[Jack] wasn’t uttering nonsense because this interview with her was very significant in his classless life, you know and I think he enjoyed it very much and cooperated with Kilgallen in every way that he could and told her the truth as he understood it. And it was just a very agreeable conversation between them and I just can’t understand people doubting the sincerity of that interview because to me, and I watched them, a very sincere discussion going back and forth.”
Asked why Ruby had decided to speak to Kilgallen, Tonahill stated, “I don’t think there was any doubt about it…Jack was highly impressed with Dorothy Kilgallen and he figured she was a very classy person, she had good programs, What’s My Line? and she was a highly intelligent person and I think of all the writers that were down there during the Ruby trial…about 400 from all over the world…she probably was the one that, to him, was the most significant ‘cause he was in the entertainment business. He had a strip joint and he looked upon her as someone who could be able to help him. And he was trying to get help from everybody he could that had any significant standing in the community or anywhere else. He was a name dropper, you know.”
Common sense dictates Marcello saw Kilgallen as a second coming of Bobby Kennedy. Like RFK, Kilgallen’s crusade was personal and not just business. JFK was her friend, the president who had been so kind to young Kerry.
Whatever Jack Ruby told Dorothy Kilgallen led her on a trail to only one city besides Dallas—New Orleans, home to Marcello’s illegal operation. There Marcello, who had to have known of Kilgallen’s interview of Ruby, heard the footsteps of the one person still alive who could topple his multimillion-dollar empire75 by connecting him to the assassinations.
Marcello, a cold-blooded killer,76 could not let this happen. He thus had the strongest possible common sense motive to eliminate the abrasive reporter. Kilgallen, described as acting like a prosecutor on What’s My Line? was writing a book with disclosures that could trigger an assassinations grand jury investigation leading to his doorstep. Motive was the basis of her theories. By not keeping her intention to write the book private and instead shouting that she was going to “crack the case wide open,” she triggered danger knocking at her door.
As the HSCA Committee report in the late 1970s stated, “Carlos Marcello had the motive, means, and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated though [we were] unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello’s complicity.” If the Committee had scoured the salient facts surrounding Kilgallen’s death in tandem with the above statement, they arguably could have targeted Marcello with much more specificity.
59 This author attempted to contact “Dickie” Kollmar through various means, including notifications on his Facebook page, to ask why, among other things, the FBI contacted him in 1975. Mr. Kollmar did not reply.
60 A full account of this author’s theories presented are featured in the book, The Poison Patriarch: How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK published in 2013.
61 Mickey Cohen’s FBI file, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, featured the words, “COHEN HAD KILLED IN THE PAST AND SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS.”
62 At one point during the hearings, RFK made fun of Sam Giancana. After he erupted into a nervous laughter at one of Bobby’s questions, RFK said, “I thought only little girls giggled, Mr. Giancana!”
63 Tina, Sinatra’s daughter, confirmed this account. She was interviewed on 60 Minutes to promote her book My Father’s Daughter. Tina stated, “[My father] got Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana to help John F. Kennedy win the presidency by asking [my dad] to talk to the Mafia about securing the labor union vote in the crucial West Virginia primary in 1960.” An editorial on the Sinatra family website (sinatrafamily.com/forum/index.php, viewed November 2015) was written by daughter Nancy. She posted the quote, “Please keep in mind when reading or hearing stories about JFK, FS [Frank Sinatra], and Sam Giancana that it was Joseph Kennedy Sr. who approached Frank for help in contacting Sam Giancana because he knew Frank, like all others on the circuit, performed in nightclubs owned by mob bosses.” Nancy Sinatra also told author Seymour Hersh, “Over lunch, Joe [Kennedy] said, ‘I think that you can help me in West Virginia and Illinois with our friends. You understand, Frank, I can’t go [see them.] They’re my friends too but I can’t approach them. But you can.’ I know that gave Dad pause. But it still wasn’t anything he felt he shouldn’t do. So off to Sam Giancana he went.”
64 Seigenthaler, later to become the founding editorial director of USA Today as well a stout defender of First Amendment rights, told th
is author he was present during the two days in 1960 when JFK made his decision. “The president first floated the balloon about Bobby becoming the attorney general during a Florida golf match with Bill Lawrence of The New York Times,” Seigenthaler recalled. “Bobby told me ‘that’s dad,’” meaning Joe was insisting on the appointment and behind the hint to Lawrence.” One evening, Seigenthaler said he ate dinner with RFK and Ethel at their Hickory Hill home. “They talked about how RFK could teach, write, and travel and what a great career he had in front of him. Bobby wasn’t going to take the job, and he said, ‘this will kill dad,’ a reference to disappointing Joe. But the next morning, during breakfast of bacon and eggs with JFK at his Georgetown flat, the president responded to Bobby’s initiating words, ‘Now about my situation,’ by telling his younger brother ‘there is no one around I really know. I need someone who will be interested in my interests and I need you.’” During the 7 to 10-minute monologue, Seigenthaler told this author, “JFK made his case, brief and concise by saying that Bobby was best qualified to handle organized crime and so forth. JFK then poured them both some coffee before Bobby said, ‘Well, I have some points to make.’ But Jack had made up his mind and he said, ‘let’s just grab our balls and go.’”
65 In the book, Mob Lawyer, Frank Ragano, attorney for Marcello, Trafficante and James Hoffa, quoted Giancana—described by author Evan Thomas as one who had “hung people on meat hooks”—as saying, “That rat bastard, son-of-a-bitch. We broke our balls for him [JFK] and gave him the election and he gets his brother [Bobby] to hound us to death.” Sam’s daughter, Antoinette Giancana, and co-authors John R. Hughes and Thomas H. Jobe, wrote in Mafia Princess, “When Sam learned that Robert F. Kennedy had been appointed attorney general, he felt it was a rabbit punch in the dark.”