THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE JFK ASSASSINATION
by Lamar Waldron
The mob did it.
In this updated, more compact version of his earlier Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination (with Thom Hartmann, 2008), soon to be a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, veteran investigative reporter Waldron (Watergate: The Hidden History: Nixon, the Mafia, and the CIA, 2012, etc.) fleshes out his argument that Mafia godfathers Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante ordered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Drawing on new interviews and declassified files, the author describes a small, carefully planned conspiracy orchestrated by Louisiana boss Marcello in retaliation for Robert Kennedy’s war on the mob. Building on the 1979 findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations that JFK’s assassination was probably the result of a conspiracy and that Marcello and Trafficante had “the motive, means, and opportunity,” Waldron weaves a complex, highly readable narrative with many disquieting elements. These include Marcello’s meetings with Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby; Marcello’s recorded prison-yard confession to a fellow inmate and FBI informer (“Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did….I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself”); and striking similarities in the behavior of Oswald and designated fall guys in two planned attempts on JFK’s life during earlier motorcade visits in Chicago and Tampa. The author maintains that the godfathers took advantage of a planned U.S.-sponsored coup against Fidel Castro: They killed the president and managed to avoid detection in the subsequent coverup of the secret coup plans. Two European gunmen opened fire at Dealey Plaza, with Oswald as the fall guy, Waldron writes. Jack Ruby’s orders were to find a cop who would kill Oswald or to do it himself, which he did. The book offers much speculation and plenty of instances of “perhaps,” “probably” and “may have.”
True or not, this makes one hell of a story and ties up all the pesky loose ends of events in Dallas 50 years ago. The conspiracy crowd will love it.