The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination

396 Pages·2013·5.02 MB·English

by  Lamar Waldron

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE JFK ASSASSINATION

Copyright © 2013 Lamar Waldron All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Waldron, Lamar, 1954—
The hidden history of the JFK Assassination : the definitive account of the most controversial crime of the
twentieth century / Lamar Waldron.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--Assassination. 2. Mafia--United States. 3. Conspiracies--
United States--History--20th century. I. Title.
E842.9.W274 2013
973.922092--dc23
2013035745
ISBN 978-1-61902-261-4
Cover design by Charles Brock, Faceout Studios Interior design by meganjonesdesign.com
COUNTERPOINT
1919 Fifth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
www.counterpointpress.com
Distributed by Publishers Group West 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Abraham Bolden, selected by JFK as the first black presidential Secret
Service agent. Bolden is still fighting to clear his name after being framed by the
Mafia almost fifty years ago.
Table of Contents
PREFACE
1: Evidence of Conspiracy
2: “Single Bullet Theory” Demolished and a New Look at Oswald
3: A Mafia Godfather Confesses
4: Carlos Marcello’s Rise to Power
5: Marcello, Cuba, and Jack Ruby
6: CIA vs. Castro, and The Kennedys vs. Carlos Marcello
7: Marcello and Trafficante: planning JFK’s Murder
8: Marcello Meets with Ruby and Oswald
9: Marcello and Trafficante Infiltrate JFK’s Secret Cuba Plan
10: Plans To Assassinate Fidel Castro and President Kennedy
11: Oswald in New Orleans, Dallas, and Mexico City
12: Carlos Marcello and the Hit Men for JFK’s Murder
13: Targeting JFK in Chicago and Tampa in November 1963
14: JFK Is Assassinated in Dallas
15: Officer Tippet Is Killed and Problems Arise for Marcello
16: Another Mafia Murder in Dallas
17: Secret Investigations and Getting Away With Murder
18: Mafia Murders, Confessions, and a Million Files Still Secret
SELECTED GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INDEX
PREFACE
F
IFTY YEARS HAVE passed since the murder of President John F. Kennedy,
yet even with millions of words written about the case, The Hidden History of
the JFK Assassination provides the final pieces to that puzzle for the first time.
While several hundred books about President Kennedy’s assassination have been
published over the past five decades, fewer than two dozen have seriously dealt
with the tidal wave of new information and evidence that has emerged in recent
years. Many of those new revelations resulted from the 4.5 million pages of JFK
assassination files released throughout the 1990s as a result of the 1992 JFK Act.
Even fewer books have presented that information in a clear, concise way
accessible to readers not already steeped in the sometimes arcane and always
complex terminology of JFK assassination research. Previous books that
provided ample, credible documentation to prove their claims had the additional
problem of extreme length. I have personal experience with that, since my first
two books on JFK’s murder—Ultimate Sacrifice and Legacy of Secrecy—were
each more than nine hundred pages. They had a combined total of almost four
thousand endnotes documenting sources, hardly the type of book that most
readers can easily digest.
New revelations about the case continue to emerge, both from previously
released government files and from participants in operations for which the files
are still mostly withheld. For example, in 2008 Legacy of Secrecy first revealed
and named the FBI’s daring undercover CAMTEX operation, which lasted from
1985 to 1986. On December 15, 1985, that operation obtained godfather Carlos
Marcello’s confession that he had ordered JFK’s murder. More information
about the CAMTEX operation, including the name of the FBI’s undercover
informant, Jack Van Laningham, appeared for the first time in the updated trade
paperback of Legacy of Secrecy in 2009.
Most of that book’s information came from uncensored FBI files I uncovered
from officials involved in the operation. However, since that time, I have had
dozens of interviews and conversations with Van Laningham. His observations
illuminated many aspects of Marcello’s involvement with JFK’s murder—as
well as with Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby—that weren’t completely clear from the
files alone. In addition, I uncovered independent corroboration for many of Van
Laningham’s observations, originally made when he was Marcello’s cellmate
and confidante for many months in 1985 and 1986.
For the first time, that documented information allows the full story of JFK’s
assassination to be told in a clear, concise manner, one backed up by the most
important earlier discoveries about JFK’s murder.
The story of Carlos Marcello, Jack Van Laningham, and JFK’s assassination
will be told in the upcoming film Legacy of Secrecy, currently being produced by
—and starring—Leonard DiCaprio, with Robert De Niro slated to play Marcello.
However, that film can tell only a small portion of the whole story of JFK’s
murder. This book provides a much fuller account and provides the supporting
documentation backing it up.
Credibility is always important in evaluating information about JFK’s murder
and in deciding which books or revelations to believe. Because I have presented
documented information from credible sources, buttressed by independent
corroboration, my work has received more mainstream press coverage than most
books documenting a conspiracy in JFK’s murder. This includes appearing
numerous times on CNN and in television documentaries about my work
produced by a division of NBC News for the Discovery Channel and by German
Public Television. Those organizations have been able both to verify the
authenticity of the declassified files I showed on those programs and to interview
some of my key sources. Other coverage has come from hundreds of
newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television stations, in this country
and others. Moreover, I aided the staff of the Presidentially appointed JFK
Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, identifying important
government files that were not being turned over to the Board by US agencies as
the law required.
Many of the key disclosures in this book came from more than two dozen key
associates of John and Robert Kennedy, interviewed by me and by my original
research collaborator, radio and television commentator Thom Hartmann. I then
found or helped get declassified files that verified their accounts. In addition, my
research was aided by many of the best writers, historians, and former
government investigators in the field, many of whom are cited throughout the
book and all of whom are named in this book’s extensive Acknowledgments.
For twenty-five years, I have been building on their work and advancing the
findings of the five government investigating committees that came after the
Warren Commission. I spent most of that time working full-time on the case, and
this book is the first compact culmination of all that research.
In response to requests from readers, this book features an Annotated
Bibliography, making it easy for readers to refer to the books, articles, and
documents used as source material. The Bibliography identifies books with
additional well-documented information about certain aspects of JFK’s
assassination and specifies which websites have major document collections,
where readers can view online many of the important files cited in the text. In
my previous books, bibliographic information lay instead in thousands of
endnotes. Though The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination has the same
high level of documentation as my earlier works, we have dispensed with
endnotes for this book. Now, it’s easy to simply Google most quotations to find
more information about their source. Also, because of its shorter length, this
book focuses on only the most important people involved in these events—in
contrast to my earlier works, which contained hundreds of names of officials,
witnesses, participants, journalists, and sources, often dozens in a single chapter.
Those wanting more in-depth information about any of the topics dealt with in
this book can find it in the updated trade paperbacks of Ultimate Sacrifice (2006)
and Legacy of Secrecy (2009) and in my 2013 edition of Watergate: The Hidden
History, which devotes almost two hundred pages to JFK’s assassination.
When I began researching the case in 1988, I started with no preconceived
conclusions and looked at the evidence against all the individuals and
organizations that some considered suspects. Focusing on credible sources,
information, and documentation for which there is independent corroboration—
and that have stood the test of time—led me to new discoveries and to a
cohesive story of what really happened to President Kennedy. The final result of
that research is in this book.
Since 1966, dozens of carefully researched and well-documented books have
thoroughly debunked every aspect of the Warren Commission’s conclusion and
process, often using the Commission’s own evidence as well as information that
was withheld from the Commission. (The best books are listed in the Annotated
Bibliography.) The most recent books to do so are 2005’s Breach of Trust by
noted historian Gerald D. McKnight and A Cruel and Shocking Act, veteran New
York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s 2013 book about the Warren Commission.
Chapter Two of The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination debunks some of
the Warren Commission’s most glaring errors, but the rest of the book focuses
primarily on telling the documented story of what led to the murder of John F.
Kennedy as simply and as concisely as possible.