51

Testimony and Wiretapped Conversations of Mobsters

Chauncey Holt

I covered Holt’s role in the earlier section on the “three tramps,” one of whom was Holt. But if you check that, you’ll notice that the testimony of Holt strongly links Mafia and CIA members as having done “business” together for a long, long time.

Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante

Two Mafia Godfathers who were involved in that linkage between the CIA and the Mafia were Marcello, head of Louisiana and Texas and a major force nationally in the mob, and Trafficante, based in South Florida and also a major force. They were both the targets of FBI operations.

Federal wiretaps were instrumental in prosecution of the Mafia, and in the process, information pertaining to the JFK assassination was also obtained from numerous conversations. Government wiretaps and Mafia informants have provided detailed confessions to direct involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.

FBI documents reveal that New Orleans Mafia Godfather Carlos Marcello confessed his involvement in the JFK assassination on several occasions.⁵¹⁵

FBI wiretaps reveal that Florida Mafia Godfather Santo Trafficante expressed knowledge of his involvement in the assassination, even making a deathbed statement to his attorney, Frank Ragano.⁵¹⁶

The following conversation took place between Santo Trafficante and his friend and Miami businessman, Jose Aleman, in 1963, shortly before the assassination of President Kennedy:

TRAFFICANTE: Have you seen how his brother is hitting Hoffa . . . mark my word, this man Kennedy is in trouble and will get what is coming to him.

JOSE ALEMAN: Kennedy will be re-elected.

TRAFFICANTE: You don’t understand me. Kennedy’s not going to make it to the election. He is going to be hit.⁵¹⁷

And here is what the Teamster boss—and avowed Kennedy hater—had to say about what his Mob brethren pulled off.

JIMMY HOFFA:

I told you they could do it. I’ll never forget what Carlos and Santo did for me.⁵¹⁸

The New Orleans mob boss wanted to be sure that Hoffa never forgot.

CARLOS MARCELLO:

When you see Jimmy, you tell him he owes me and he owes me big.⁵¹⁹

Here, Marcello explains just why Hoffa owed him big—he’d gotten rid of JFK, whose brother Bobby was Hoffa’s nemesis.

Carlos Marcello (from FBI records; spoken to an FBI confidential informant):

I had the little son-of-a-bitch killed, and I’d do it again . . . I wish I could have done it myself.⁵²⁰

Santo Trafficante (Spoken telephonically by Trafficante on FBI wiretap in 1975, shortly after the murder of Sam Giancana):

Now there’s only two people alive who know who killed Kennedy, and they ain’t talkin’.

Santo Trafficante (Deathbed statement of Trafficante to his attorney, Frank Ragano; spoken in Sicilian, days before Trafficante’s death):

Carlos fucked up. We should not have killed John. We should have killed Bobby.⁵²¹

Johnny Roselli:

Columnist Jack Anderson befriended Roselli and, gradually over time, important facts came out of that relationship. Anderson wrote the following about it, in this case with Roselli trying to point the finger back at Castro.

Before he died, Roselli hinted to associates that he knew who had arranged President Kennedy’s murder. It was the same conspirators, he suggested, whom he had recruited earlier to kill Cuban Premier Fidel Castro.

According to Roselli, Castro enlisted the same underworld elements whom he had caught plotting against him. They supposedly were Cubans from the old Trafficante organization. Working with Cuban intelligence, they allegedly lined up an ex-Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had been active in the pro-Castro movement.

According to Roselli’s version, Oswald may have shot Kennedy or may have acted as a decoy while others ambushed him from closer range. When Oswald was picked up, Roselli suggested the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald making it appear as an act of reprisal against the President’s killer.⁵²²

So there’s a lot of documentation—from the FBI’s own files—linking those guys to the assassination:

Trafficante ‘had been recruited in the CIA’ plots to kill Castro months before JFK became president.⁵²³

Like Marcello, Trafficante later confessed his involvement in JFK’s assassination.⁵²⁴

Recently declassified FBI documents confirm that just a few years before his own death, Carlos Marcello confessed on three occasions to informants that he had had JFK killed.⁵²⁵

James Files

James Files is a man in prison who says he was a shooter that day on the grassy knoll. He’s still alive and has been interviewed in custody. Some people in the JFK research community have questioned his veracity but, if you take a close look, most of the attacks on him are suspiciously weak (like saying he was doing covert ops in Laos before we were actually in Laos). Much of his story matches up with the actual evidence. For example, he says he was wearing a reversible plaid jacket—which matches up precisely with Lee Bowers’ testimony of the man he saw with a rifle on the grassy knoll. There are a lot of other corroborations like that, too.

Wim Dankbaar, a Dutch businessman, constructed a great website with a lot of research, specializing in Files, Holt, and tons of other information: jfkmurdersolved.com/index1.htm.

Dankbaar also hired former FBI Special Agent Zack Shelton to look into the Files case like he had investigated Chauncey Holt and his connections. Zack had tons of experience in the FBI organized crime unit, so he checked out everything about Files’ story, friends, and history; checking his background and then checking and double-checking every little part of his testimony. He verified Files’ bona fides with the mob in general and Chuck Nicoletti (Files’ boss) in particular. That alone makes what he has to say well worth listening to.

You can see Files’ testimony online; like Chauncey Holt’s testimony, he ties together the links between the Mafia and elements of the CIA: youtube.com/watch?v=tFhu-yeyb_Y.

Also online, you can see FBI vet Zack Shelton discussing the case in general and Files in particular. This is a great clip that details the findings of his ten-year, unbiased, professional investigation: jfkmurdersolved.com/index1.htm.

⁵¹⁵ “FBI Document 124-10182-10430,” Bradley S. O’Leary & L.E. Seymour, Triangle of Death: The Shocking Truth About the Role of South Vietnam and the French Mafia in the Assassination of JFK (WND Books: 2003); Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

⁵¹⁶ Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer; Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

⁵¹⁷ Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice.

⁵¹⁸ Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer.

⁵¹⁹ Ibid.

⁵²⁰ “FBI Document 124-10182-10430,” O’Leary & Seymour, Triangle of Death.

⁵²¹ Ragano & Raab, Mob Lawyer.

⁵²² Jack Anderson, “JFK plot: Did mobster’s death cover up secret,” September 8, 1976: news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2002&dat=19760908&id=3PYuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QtsFAAAA IBAJ&pg=4912,1845880

⁵²³ David Talbot, “The man who solved the Kennedy assassination,” Salon.com, 11-22-03: ultimatesacrificebook.com/outline.html

⁵²⁴ Jack Newfield, “I want Kennedy killed,” May 1992, Penthouse; Ragano and Raab, Mob Lawyer, 346–354, 361; Waldron & Hartmann, Ultimate Sacrifice: ultimatesacrificebook.com/outline.html

⁵²⁵ FBI DL 183A-1f035-Sub L 3.6.86 and FBI Dallas 175-109 3.3.89, cited by A. J. Weberman; CR 137A-5467-69, 6-9-88, cited by O’Leary & Seymour, Triangle of Death: ultimatesacrificebook.com/outline.html