by Mark Shaw
66 Prior to JFK’s assassination, Joe Kennedy had been warned by a crime family emissary that RFK needed to back off his pursuit of underworld figures based on Joe’s promise. The Kennedy patriarch agreed to speak to Bobby but instead had JFK do so especially after an FBI wiretap indicated Giancana’s displeasure with RFK’s campaign to destroy the Mafia. Despite JFK’s plea, Bobby refused to back off. A few days later, Joe Kennedy suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. He must have known his worst fears had been realized, that JFK had been killed by the Mafia based on revenge for Bobby’s actions.
67 Nancy Ragano, wife of Frank Ragano, attorney for Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, and James Hoffa, told this author she watched Frank and Trafficante laugh, joke, and raise glasses of champagne high in the air. Each was toasting JFK’s assassination at the International Inn, a five-star hotel in Tampa, Florida.
68 In the House Select Committee on Assassinations Report, Marcello is quoted as telling an informant, “The President was the dog, the Attorney General Kennedy was its tail. If you cut off the tail, the dog will keep biting; but if you chop off the head, the dog will die, tail and all.”
69 During November 1963, Carlos Marcello stood trial in New Orleans on the conspiracy charges. Shortly after noon CST on November 22 Marcello, during a break in the testimony, was tapped on the shoulder by one of his underlings, David Ferrie. He informed Marcello, “Our troubles are over. JFK is dead.” After the jury retired to reach a verdict, Marcello was acquitted in an hour.
70 During the summer 1967, RFK, in a rare moment of disclosure, told advisor and speechwriter Richard Goodwin, husband of noted historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, that he believed his brother was killed by “the guy from New Orleans,” meaning Marcello.
71 During a Chicago speech, Robert Kennedy branded Marcello and Civello a “malignant threat to society.”
72 Author David E. Scheim: “Joseph Campisi was described by Ruby’s sister Eva Grant as a close friend of Ruby. Ruby’s roommate George Senator named ‘a Mr. Campisi, who operated the Egyptian Lounge’ as one of Ruby’s three closest friends.”
73 Recall that during Kilgallen’s era, Mafia influence flourished, gangsters were celebrities of sorts with powerful means of controlling politics, law enforcement and the courts. There was an atmosphere of corruption and little doubt exists Kilgallen knew of Marcello whose deportation had been condemned by New York Times articles.
74 Another powerful woman, the then Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi agreed with Kilgallen’s conclusions. In May 2011, she told author Larry J. Sabato, “As soon as I saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald, I thought, ‘Of course! That’s what they do to someone who kills somebody—kill him so he can’t talk.’”
75 In The Plot to Kill the President, former HSCA counsel G. Robert Blakey and his co-author Richard Billings wrote, “By 1963, the mobster was grossing many millions annually, $500 million from illegal gambling, $100 million from illegal activities in over 1,500 syndicate-connected bars, $8 million from professional burglaries and holdups, $6 million from prostitution, and $400 million from diverse…‘investments.’ When he wanted to relax, Marcello could enjoy the benefits of the 22-million-dollar, 6,500-acre estate Churchill Farms he owned near New Orleans.”
76 In Marcello, a biography of Carlos Marcello, author Stefano Vaccara noted the New Orleans Don’s propensity for violence. Stefano wrote that if anyone double-crossed Marcello, “the man ended up being strangled and his body thrown in a tub of caustic acid. The remains were then dumped into a swamp where the alligators would take care of the rest.”
CHAPTER 27
Of important consideration regarding Carlos Marcello’s plausible motive to eliminate Dorothy Kilgallen was her visit to New Orleans within a month of her death. Author Lee Israel, in a September 30, 1995 audiotaped interview, said, “[Kilgallen] was tracing [Jack] Ruby’s past, his mob ties.”
This New Orleans trip was the one prior to the trip she was planning when she died. Based on his credible research and inside information garnered from interviews with Johnnie Ray before he died, Ray’s sole biographer Jonny Whiteside wrote:
Dorothy was in high gear working on the Kennedy assassination, an investigation that demanded more and more of her time. To Johnnie, it all seemed quite mysterious. She mentioned a planned trip to New Orleans for further research into Lee Harvey Oswald’s background and connections there (a daunting contradiction of his pro-Cuba street corner politics and incongruous associations with right-wing conservatives and the Carlos Marcello crime family.)
Israel and Whiteside’s observations indicate two important points: 1) Kilgallen was not abandoning her JFK and Oswald assassinations investigation, and 2) she had somehow made the connection evidently linking Oswald to Marcello with interest in searching Ruby’s past “mob-ties” to connect the three men. Kilgallen had already noted the potential connection of Ruby to Oswald in the “DA to Link Oswald to Ruby” February 1964 column since she would not have written that column unless she had some evidence linking the two men based either on her own research or information the District Attorney’s office had passed along. 77 78
Recall Marc Sinclaire’s eerie details about the New Orleans adventure. Kilgallen demanded that they take separate flights. After only one day in the city, Kilgallen scared Sinclaire when she told him to return to New York City and not tell anyone he accompanied her there. Kilgallen never reported on her visit. Whom she spoke to was unknown. Regardless, whatever Kilgallen discovered triggered the plans for a second visit, one that excited her. This led to statements to friends that her life was in danger, foreshadowing her death shortly thereafter.
Why the New Orleans-based Marcello had much to fear from the relentless reporter, and the book she was writing, is clear. If one examines closely the details about Kilgallen’s assassinations investigation, all indications point to her mainly focusing on the assassination of Oswald by Ruby not Oswald’s alleged assassination of the president. The savvy Kilgallen apparently realized what other competent researchers who fit facts to conclusions instead of the other way around, have during the years: Oswald was a puzzling/confusing character and attempts to decipher his role in the killing of JFK an absolute quagmire with few definitive answers available.
Instead, Kilgallen instincts triggered an ultimate focus on Jack Ruby. Why? Because she had not only observed him up close at trial on a daily basis but interviewed him twice providing great insight into Oswald’s killer. In addition, Kilgallen could check not only his background but investigate discrepancies in statements he made to the Warren Commission since she was the first reporter to read them, and since Ruby was still alive, the potential existed to interview him again. This strategy was unique, far afield from that conducted by any reporter or investigative body consumed with targeting Oswald as the key to unlocking the mysteries of the JFK assassination when Kilgallen believed he was not.
In addition, after interviewing Ruby twice, Kilgallen had gained a soft spot for his plight, some sympathy for the man who shot Oswald. Whatever she heard during the twin interviews caused her to wonder if Ruby was a patsy, used and then discarded. Recall what she wrote after the second interview: “I went out into the almost empty lunchroom corridor wondering what I really believed about this man.”
Kilgallen’s actions while pursuing the investigation indicated she had taken on the task of defending Ruby herself. She was standing up for him, demanding justice, becoming his paladin. She wondered if he had fair treatment, if his constitutional rights to a fair trial were honored. Armed with this mindset, Kilgallen was in fighting mode determined to leave no avenue of interest unturned.
Kilgallen’s siding with Ruby’s defense team at his trial evidenced proof of Kilgallen’s focus on Ruby. She also attempted to aid the defense by securing more information from the FBI about Oswald. Then Kilgallen expo
sed only Ruby’s testimony at the Warren Commission before its intended release instead of the thousands of pages of pertinent information about others associated with the assassinations. It also appears likely she flew to New Orleans based on what he told her in the interviews. To put it mildly, Kilgallen was obsessed with Ruby. She was not about to give up on discovering the truth about why he killed Oswald. And, most important, who may have ordered Ruby to do so.79
There is cause to believe Kilgallen would have pursued interviewing Ruby again if she had lived longer. Remember that Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade had stated he was willing to recommend that Ruby’s death sentence be reduced to life imprisonment since it was important because “ …there are still a lot of unanswered questions.” Wade did not elaborate and no follow-up article appeared.80
Without doubt, Kilgallen, tenacious like her father Jim, had a strong constitution and a willingness to forge ahead when others would have stopped. During her career, Kilgallen never backed away from a challenge, never letting being a woman stand in the way of challenging men or women when she believed in the cause. She broke the “glass ceiling” before the term was fashionable as she advanced from a one-week trial at her father’s newspaper to a full-time reporter to the only female columnist on Broadway to a famous columnist syndicated to 200 newspapers across the country. Regardless of the obstacle, she succeeded during an era when it was definitely a man’s world.
Kilgallen had set the tone when she wrote, “I’m a reporter who likes danger and excitement” in her published book after challenging the two men during the around the world race. Jim Kilgallen was right when he said his daughter was courageous. Close friend Maggie McNelli also expressed Kilgallen’s strong will. She said, “Dorothy had a tremendous will to win.…As a matter of fact, she’d kill you to win.”
With this in mind, specifically recalling Kilgallen’s investigative trail from early 1964 in sequence to November 1965, is possible. Doing so makes what she wrote in her September 3, 1965 Journal-American column, approximately two months before the day she died, especially relevant. It read in part, “This story [JFK assassination] is not going to die as long as there’s a real reporter alive—and there are a lot of them.”
Unfortunately, for history’s sake, there were not “a lot of them.” Only one—Dorothy Kilgallen.
77 The connection of Jack Ruby to Marcello was also noted in the HSCA report. FBI records indicated Ruby called Nofio Pecora, a “capo” working for Marcello, three weeks before November 22, 1963. Also, Ruby could not have operated a strip club in Dallas without Marcello’s okay.
78 At Ruby’s trial, District Attorney Wade did not introduce witnesses connecting Ruby and Oswald. Kilgallen never provided any explanation for Wade’s failure to do so in any of her subsequent Ruby trial columns.
79 In a September 7, 1976 Washington Post column, Jack Anderson wrote of interviewing mobster Johnny Rosselli regarding Ruby. Anderson said Roselli, connected to mobsters like Marcello, told him, “When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead them to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald….”
80 On October 5th, 1966. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled, among other matters, that Judge Joe Brown’s denial of the change of Ruby’s venue motion was reversible error. They ordered a new trial be held away from Dallas. Judge W. T. McDonald, after discussing the emotions seething in Dallas after JFK’s murder, wrote, “Against such a background of unusual and extraordinary invasions of the expected neutral mental processes of a citizenry from which a jury is to be chosen, the Dallas County climate was one of such strong feeling that it was not humanly possible to give Ruby a fair and impartial trial which is the hallmark of American due process of law.”
CHAPTER 28
In all likelihood, the timing of Dorothy Kilgallen’s death cannot be a coincidence. The fact is that it occurred within days of telling friends she possessed evidence pointing toward who killed JFK and why. This provides good cause to believe that plans were in place to murder her on the very weekend her body was discovered.
Inside information fed to those who feared Kilgallen caused a realization: she was too close to the truth. Whoever snitched on her, whoever betrayed her trust, must have triggered a call to action. Result: Kilgallen’s second New Orleans trip must never happen.
Examining that proposed trip warrants consideration. During the prior visit, something occurred, based on Marc Sinclaire’s account, to spook Kilgallen but it was not enough to make her stop the investigation. Instead, the courageous journalist was forging ahead and even excited about it. Whatever it was she expected to learn in New Orleans may have been the grand finale, the key to uncovering the truth about the assassinations.
Recall that in the “DA to Link Ruby to Oswald” column,81 Kilgallen suggested that Oswald may have actually worked in Ruby’s nightclub. In the days and months that followed, it appears she had somehow further connected them,82 and if, through a second trip to New Orleans as Johnny Whiteside’s column intimates, she was able to solidify the link between Oswald and Marcello, then the risk of traveling to New Orleans was worth it. Why? Because that link fit perfectly in view of the connection she had established between Marcello and Ruby, perhaps through the interview with Ruby, providing the smoking gun evidence she would present in articles or her upcoming book. Kilgallen, if she could obtain the final proof she needed to connect all three men with Marcello masterminding the mob operation to kill JFK from the “source [whom I do not know but will recognize] who is going to give me information about the case” she mentioned to What’s My Line? make-up man Carmen Gebbia, would indeed have “the scoop of the century,” as she once boasted.
However, there was a snitch in the mix, a Judas. That person had told someone the status of Kilgallen’s investigation. The famous reporter, like John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby, was doomed. She just did not know it yet.
* * * * *
Before attempting to pinpoint who may have been the traitor within Kilgallen’s inner circle, it is important to consider the means by which she died. This helps provide a plausible explanation for identifying the snitch’s identity, the one who, in all likelihood, set Kilgallen up for the kill, or was the killer.
Unlike the ability to target Marcello as the one who had the strongest motive to orchestrate the murder of Kilgallen, proving how she was murdered is more difficult. This is because no follow-up investigation commenced. Nevertheless, the means by which Kilgallen was killed is connected to the opportunity to commit the crime. The first place to consider both is by revisiting the death scene at her townhouse.
The most credible eyewitness is Kilgallen’s main hairdresser Marc Sinclaire. In the videotaped interview conducted by investigative reporter Kathryn Fauble’s associate during the 1990s (Excerpts available at
TheReporterWhoKnewTooMuch.com), Sinclaire recalled entering Kilgallen’s home on the morning of November 8. She had asked him to fix her hair for an appointment she had at Kerry’s school.
Sinclaire said he headed for a small dressing room on the townhouse’s third floor where Kilgallen normally had her hair done. This room was next to her main clothes closet leading directly to Kilgallen’s master bath. Sinclaire recalled, “When I entered…she was not in that room but the air conditioning was on and it was cold outside.83 So I turned on my curling irons and I walked into the [adjacent] bedroom, not thinking she would be there.”
That bedroom was the Master. It was adjacent to the “Black Room” where the couple entertained guests. The couple had not slept in the Master for some time. Sinclaire, in a separate audiotaped interview, said Kilgallen “…was lonely, really lonely…and she proceeded to tell me the situation that occurred in the [Master] bedroom she no longer slept in, which I had often asked why
she didn’t use that bedroom since it was so much more convenient.” Sinclaire, when asked if this was the bedroom where she caught Richard with one of his paramours, apparently a “business partner,” agreed, stating “and that was another ironic thing I thought was that Dorothy would have never slept there let alone committed suicide there or even have a fatal overdose there. She hated that bedroom and we only used it because of the dressing room. Or we would have never used it at all.”
Sinclaire explained that Kilgallen normally slept in her private office, the “Cloop,” on the fifth floor. Richard slept in a bedroom on the fourth floor. Sinclaire further described what he discovered:
She was sitting up in bed, and I walked over to the bed and touched her, and I knew she was dead right away. The bed was spotless. She was dressed very peculiarly. I’ve never seen her dressed like that before. She always [was] in pajamas and old socks and her make-up was off and her hairpiece was off and everything. She was completely dressed like she was going out, the hair was in place, the make-up was on, the false eyelashes were on.
Sinclaire added:
The matching peignoir and robe, a book laid out on thebed, a drink on the table, the light was on, the air conditioning was on though you didn’t need an air conditioner you would have had the heat on. And she was always cold. And why she had the air conditioning on I don’t know.84
Sinclaire, who explained that perhaps someone had turned on the air conditioner “to keep the body a certain temperature,” said the glass85 was “on the right hand side, way away, way over, and the book was turned upside down it wasn’t in the right position where if you’d been reading you’d lay it down and it was laid down so perfectly.”