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Kelley 1 Naomi Kelley Mr. Blaine Elsworth Engl. 2010.120 29 July 2010 President John Fitzgerald Kennedy Assassination In the research of James W. Loewens book Lies My Teacher Told Me he directs the reader to a couple of possible ideas that may have led to the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He implies to this idea but also the idea of an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro of Cuba. He further implies that the Cubans and the Mafia were involved in these possible crimes. In the research acquired for this essay there was information alluding to a coup and that more than one government and their agencies were also involved. All stemming from the alleged failed Bay of Pigs. In reality the stand down of the Russians when they tried to take over Cuba and the United States stand against the communist possible take over appeared to go well. However many were not happy that the U.S. did not take over Cuba and they blamed JFK. Many did not want Castro to be the Leader of Cuba and so plans seem to begin being hatched on how and when to kill both leaders. (230-231)

Kelley 2 NSA Assassination Documents by Anonymous on Sun, Jan 3, 2010, 10:47 PM GMT (#1835) Documents release by the NSA also contain an intercept from March 25, 1963. This intercept from station "USA 66" stated "kill Kennedy and sister". It was enough to cause the NSA to alert the Pentagon and CIA. From what I've pieced together, USA 66 was a station monitoring Cuba. No other station in the area recorded this intercept. On November 27,1963 the Air Force Security Command

sent a cable to NSA reminding them of the March 25, 1963 intercept and suggesting NSA research their records for any connection with slaying of President Kennedy. It is interesting to note that on March 4,1963 the CIA's Special Affairs Staff \ Counter Intelligence section sent a message to Miami JMWAVE station and headquarter Records section to open a file titled "Plots to Assassinate the President of the United States" (see CIA LA Division record number 104-10506-10019), (Elliston) In this piece it appears that someone or a group of people were planning to kill JFK and his sister. Why did they want the President dead? Again it moves us into the direction of the Bay of Pigs. As the research continues Lee Harvey Oswald was being implicated in some international intrigue. However, Oswald so far is only implicated in the connections to certain people and governments that where linked to JFK assassination. Thanks to the JFK Act of 1992 passed in the wake of Oliver Stones wellknown movie, many of the assassination documents were released in the last Kelley 3 few years but the rest are being held back to 2017 or even later. Whether or not Oswald was a spy, he was in the middle of some intriguing operations centered in New York City and Mexico City during the months before Kennedy was shot. The goal was to isolate Castros government in the eyes of the world and to pave the way for a second invasion of Cuba, much like George Bushs second invasion of Iraq. These operations appear to have been used by someone

whether it was Oswald or someone else as protective cover behind which they could engineer the assassination of JFK, causing the intelligence bureaucracies to instinctively cover up and protect their jobs and pensions, even at the cost of concealing known evidence about Oswald. Who was using who? (Simpich) Oswald was linked to key members of the Cuban Mafia Mafia and the CIA as well as other organization. However was he the only one to be involved in this heinous crime against the President? Santos Trafficante Jr. of the Florida Cuban Mafia began appearing as a predominant figure in the assassination. Santos Trafficante Jr, the Cosa Nostra godfather of southeast Florida..20 years earlier in Havana. For the second time in four years the known mafia capo who had never served any prison sentence and died shortly afterwards with a clean criminal

Kelley 4 record had to enter the Washington Capitol building for an appearance before the a special U.S. congressional committee. The famed Dons countenance was grim, annoyed at the fact that his Cuban connections were once again putting him on the spot in that autumn of 1978. But this time it concerned something more dangerous that when he faced the Church Commission in 1974 and 1975 and his recruitment by the CIA for the assassination of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro became public. Now this committee was attempting to elucidate, 15 years after the assassination of

President John F. Kennedy, the evident pointers to a conspiracy rather than a lone assassin, and the possible involvement of the Italian-American mafia, specifically Santos Trafficante and his Cuban friends in that conspiracy. In search of votes, Kennedy made Cuba one of the strongest issues of his presidential campaign. Despite his comprehension of the whys and wherefores of the revolutionary process, he wanted to be a more radical opponent than his rival Nixon. That forced him into accepting a possible plan to bring down the Revolution during the election period, and to play a leading role in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the imposition of the blockade, and the October Missile Crisis in 1962. TRAFFICANTE ADMITS TO WORKING WITH THE CIA ..former associate, millionaire Jos Alemn Jr., the son of a ex-minister of education in Cuba notorious for the skillful manner in which he extracted funds Kelley 5 from the public treasury, had declared that in a private conversation in September 1962, his friend had confided to him that President Kennedy was going to be assassinated, and that he

Staff on Life magazine traveled on board the Alisan steamer and the Phoenix speedboat to Caibarin bay in Cuba on March 28, 1963, to cover the shelling of the Soviet tanker Baku that was transporting sugar. During the investigation by U.S. Congress into the assassination of President Kennedy, former CIA director Richard Helms was forced to confess there were attempts to blow up electricity plants, sugar mills, and boats as well as other terrorist acts organized by Cubans against targets both inside and outside the island, for which the blame should not fall solely on the Agency. The plans were so extensive that Kennedy had to take steps to put an end to them, thus inciting the wrath of the instigators. One of the most important motives impelling those same terrorists to take part in the conspiracy was that the U.S. president was thinking of normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations.

Documents in Cuban State Security possession show that Eladio del Valle, whose name figures among those who shot at Kennedy, was a Batista police secret agent.

recalled that conversation when the homicide occurred in November 1963. I informed the authorities of that. I talked to members of the FBI and told them that something irregular was going on in terms of President Kennedy. I informed the FBI of everything that happened afterwards. Afterwards they told me not to worry, that Oswald was a lone assassin. The interrogation of Santos Trafficante began with the issue of his

participation in assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban Revolution. He admitted that he was recruited by the CIA for that conspiracy. In relation to the assassination Kelley 6 attempts in Fidel Castro, Trafficante added that the first person to make contact with him, acting under instruction from the CIA, was John Roselli and subsequently Sam Giancana.Roselli had continued tangling with the justice system, alleging his collaboration with the CIA in order to avoid a prison term. For his part, Giancana received a prison term in 1964 and was treated there like the royal bodyguard, with Cuban cigars and Scotch whisky, among other delicacies. Less than two years later, at his appeal, just when Edward Hanrahan, the state attorney felt certain he could uphold the sentence, a message came from Washington from Katzenbach, the justice secretary himself, instructing his release without any further explanation. On leaving prison, the Chicago capo left for Mexico, apparently a condition of his release. He remained there until 1974 when the Mexican authorities unceremoniously removed him from his hacienda in Cuernavaca - without giving him time to get dressed - in the pajamas, dressing gown and slippers he was wearing at the time and sent him back to the United States. Giancana gave his first testimony to the Church Committee in 1975 and was expecting further appearances, but he was discovered in a pool of blood in his

home in Oak Park, Illinois, shot in the mouth and five times in the neck. Months later, Rosellis corpse appeared inside a barrel floating in the river. The Stokes Senate Committee reached the conclusion that Jack Ruby who

Kelley 7 murdered Lee Harvey Oswald - effectively did have links with organized crime and with Trafficante. RUBYS MAFIA CONTACTS The Stokes Committee had evidence that Ruby managed cabarets in Dallas and acted as a front man for the Chicago mafia. The most important ones were between June and September 1963. Ruby made seven long-distance phone calls to Lewis J. McWillie, a close associate of Trafficante and Meyer Lansky, whom he had visited on various occasions in Havana in 1959. McWillie operated the casino in the Tropicana cabaret. According to the committees findings, Ruby was also linked to David Yaras, a mafia executor that he admitted having known in 1964, and David Ferrie, of Cuban origin and one of Marcellos pilots, who in his turn used to visit Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. Ferrie, who was contracted by the CIA, also knew Oswald from the Falcon Squadron of the Civilian Air Patrol and the famous office at 544, Camp Street, New Orleans, where many of the plans for the assassination were hatched. Yaras, Ferrie and del Valle were mysteriously killed shortly after Kennedys assassination.

The Select Committee came to the conclusion that Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans capo; Santos Trafficante, the Florida capo; and Jimmy Hoffa, president

Kelley 8 of the teamsters trade union, possessed the motive, the means and the opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy. Trafficante was a vital target in the Kennedy administrations battle against organized crime, and his name was among 10 main subjects to investigate and combat. THE IMMORAL CIA-MAFIA ASSOCIATION When Robert Kennedy discovered the immoral association between the CIA and the mafia, he banned the officials involved from having recourse to such associations without his being informed. But they continued to do so under Richard Helms direction. The Committee report states that Trafficantes position in organized crime and drug trafficking and his role as a principal mafia connection with criminal individuals within the Cuban exile community provided him with the opportunity of drawing up a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, as he had previously done in the case of Fidel Castro. The report states that the anti-Castroites were frustrated, embittered and angered and their hatred was focused on Kennedy who, shortly before his death, instructed William Atwood to discuss the possibility of normalizing relations with Cuban diplomats to the United Nations. The Cuban delegate in those talks was Carlos Lechuga, then ambassador to the UN. Kennedys security advisor,

McGeorge Bundy stated that the president wanted a report on the progress of those talks on his return from Dallas. ATLEE PHILIPS, THE PROTAGONIST OF DIRTY WORK Kelley 9 Antonio Veciana, the founder of Alpha 66, testified to the Committee that in the context of his activities against the Cuban government, he had frequent meetings with a CIA officer who gave his name as Bishop. And that in August 1963 in Dallas, Texas, the latter made contact with him in an office building with another person whom he identified after Kennedys death as Lee Harvey Oswald. (Molina) During this essay research a friend suggested possibility of E. Howard Hunts involvement of the assassination. This name had already come up in the research. The following article made for interesting reading material. Bishops real name was David Atlee Philips, who worked for the CIA in Havana and was the Miami chief of propagandistic aspects of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Atlee Philips/Bishop was one of the heads of that operation together with Howard Hunt, the principal organizer of Watergate. (Molina) Mr. Hunt was a CIA operative implicated in the Kennedy assassination and involved in the Watergate scandal under President Nixon. This type of information does seem to put this person in a negative light and makes him highly likely to be involved in Kennedys demise. More will be discussed on this subject later in this essay. RICHARD HELMS STATES THAT CIA ASSASSINATIONS WERE POLITICAL

ACTIONS ..September 22, 1978, former CIA director Richard Helms provoked indignation among certain Congress members and shock in the majority of them, in his Kelley 10 seven-hour appearance before the Select Committee to respond to questions concerning the effectiveness of the CIA investigation after the assassination, and if he had supplied others with the relevant information in his possession. In the Committee hearings, Congressman Christopher J. Dodd asked whether the Warren Commission was informed of the assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and displayed his anger at the agencys contacts with organized crime. At the Congress members insistence, he stated that activities against the Cuban Revolution included attempts to sabotage electricity plants and sugar mills, setting fire to cane fields and other kinds of terrorist acts. He added that this was a political action for which the agency should not solely be blamed, as the president, the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the State Department and the National Security Council were fully aware of the plans and had approved them. OSWALDS CONTACTS WITH THE CIA DATED BACK TO 1960 One of the CIA memoranda presented in the investigation stated that in spite of being a member of the Warren Commission Allen Dulles tutored his subordinates on how to conceal the CIAs relations with Oswald. Three days previously, Thomas J. Kelley and James J. Rowley, inspector and

chief, respectively, of the Secret Service responsible for the presidents protection, astounded all U.S. citizens by declaring that in spite of the FBI and the CIA possessing information on Oswald, the Secret Service was unaware of it. Kelley 11 Those and other findings led the committee to the conclusion that there was a lack of cooperation and coordination among the distinct government agencies; that the Secret Service was deficient in its protection of the president; its analysis of information that it possessed; and that it lacked the personnel for adequate protection. A startling similarity with the events of September 11, 2001. Veciana was not the only one to refer to CIA intentions to link the Cuban government to the assassination. Minutes after the assassination, the agency was already circulating accusations against Cuba in the national and international press, which charges remained until the Stokes Committee threw them out in 1978 after investigating in Mexico and Havana, where its members met with President Fidel Castro. Perhaps the most disconcerting evidence uncovered by the Stokes Committee on the sole assassin theory is the recording found in the Dallas police precinct, where four instead of the three shots established by the Warren Commission can be heard. This is strengthened by the statement given by Governor Connallys wife: that he was wounded by a second shot and not the one that hit the president in the throat, the magic bullet of the apparent sole assassin. The most important documentation on the Dallas assassination is stored away

as secret information in CIA, FBI and Pentagon archives, and will not be declassified until 2013.

Kelley 12 THE PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL GUILTY PARTIES Based on information in State Security files, and certain evidence pertaining to the event and its antecedents, General Fabian Escalante, one of Cuban investigators in the case, stated that he had reached certain conclusions similar to those of other analysts on the guilty parties: the CIA, the Mafia and Cuban terrorists planned and executed the assassination. On the book ZR Rifle, he expounded that expert sharpshooters of Cuban origin Eladio del Valle and Herminio Daz, with or without Oswald, were responsible for the shooting, escaping afterwards in a Nash Rambler van. The conspiracy was executed by two groups, he stated, One controlled by Jack Ruby and he other by Frank Sturgis, subsequently the Watergate plumber. Escalante went on to reveal the Mafia participants as Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, John Roselli and, to a lesser degree, Carlos Marcello and Jimmy Hoffa. Among the CIA plotters he mentioned David Atlee Philips who became chief of the Western Hemispheric Division in the 70s; Richard Helms, supervisor of the

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anti-Cuban operations and later director of the Company; and General Cabell, ex-deputy chief of the CIA; Gerry Hemmings and other senior officials. (Molina) This last section indicated that the CIA was some how involved in the plot and assassination of JFK. There were several factions that wanted this assassination to happen such as of course CIA, Mafia, Cuban terrorists. With this many enemies where were all of the Presidents supporters? Where was his protection? To make matters worse in comes the Cuban government. Before now, the information contained in Cuban files on events leading to the tragedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963 had remained secret. But the Havana delegation to the conference included General Fabian Escalante, former chief of Cuba's G-2 intelligence agency The Miami Puzzle The Cubans backed up their claim with new evidence linking right-wing Cuban exiles, renegade CIA officials, organized-crime figures and possibly wealthy Texans to the conspiracy--a complex scenario in which accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was set up as (in his own words) a "patsy" whose history would implicate Havana and its Soviet allies. After the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought the USA and USSR to the brink of nuclear war, Kennedy's agreement with the Soviets officially barred further US attempts to overthrow Castro or invade Cuba, and US-Soviet relations began to thaw. Even though the CIA continued to plot Castro's assassination, the Kennedy Administration quietly Kelley 14

began seeking a rapprochement with Cuba, says Escalante. But before long, wind of the President's efforts got to the CIA and its Miami-based Cuban-exile minions. "By mid-1963, we had infiltrated a special group of exiles working with the CIA," says Escalante. "A CIA official came to a safe-house in Miami and said to a group of Cuban exiles, `You must eliminate Kennedy.'" The Cubans did not know this CIA man's name, but they knew plenty about David Atlee Phillips, who was running the CIA's covert operations out of its Mexico City station. It has long been speculated that Phillips was really "Maurice Bishop", who was identified by exile leader Antonio Veciana, speaking to Congressional investigators in 1978, as his CIA case officer, involved in numerous assassination plots against Castro. One of Phillips' close associates was a Miami-based CIA officer named David Morales. Escalante says Morales was identified by Rolando Cubela as "one of the officials" who spoke with him in Paris in September 1963 about assassinating Castro. Cubela, a Cuban official who was really a double-agent code-named AM/LASH by the CIA, was in Paris picking up his weaponry--a pen containing lethal poison--to kill Castro at the very moment of JFK's assassination. In the aftermath of the JFK assassination, his mission to assassinate Castro was scotched. Cubela, a crony of top Miami mobster Santos Trafficante, was finally arrested in Cuba in 1966.

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Trafficante was one of several gangsters hired by the CIA to recruit Cuban exiles into assassination plots against Castro. His Havana casino operations had been shut down by Castro when the Revolution took power in 1959, and he was briefly imprisoned; Rolando Cubela is believed have helped negotiate his release. Upon arriving in Miami in 1960, Trafficante found himself among the top targets of US Attorney General Robert Kennedy--the president's kid brother. Mob Lawyer, a recent book by the late Trafficante's attorney, Frank Ragano, contains allegations that the mobster worked with New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello and Teamsters' Union leader Jimmy Hoffa--both targets of Robert Kennedy's far-reaching corruption probes--in helping plan the JFK assassination. New information released at the Nassau conference supports these allegations. Havana-Washington Shadow Play Escalante surmises: "Oswald was an intelligence agent of the US--CIA, FBI, military, or all of these, we don't know. He was manipulated, told he was penetrating a group of Cuban agents that wanted to kill Kennedy. But from the very beginning, he was to be the element to blame Cuba." "Not less than 15 persons took part in the assassination," Escalante theorizes. "At the same time, knowing a little about CIA operations, we see how they used the principle of decentralized operations--independent parties with a specific role, to guarantee compartmentalization and to keep it simple." (Russell) This article states that Oswald was to be the patsy and that there were those even in Cuba that had been planning to kill Fidel Castro at the same time Kennedy was Kelley 16

assassinated. The plot was squashed, probably to keep everyone from finding out who really was involved. Also indicated in this article; Escalante stated that in his estimate there were no less than 15 people involved in this operation. How many people were not involved but knew of the assassination plot and did nothing to prevent it? We may never know. E. Howard Hunt was briefly mentioned earlier in this essay. In My research of Mr. Hunt I found a few more players in the Kennedy assassination. Was a key Richard Nixon cohort in past and future covert intelligence operations then CIA agent E. Howard Hunt in Dallas the day President Kennedy was killed in 1963? During a 1985 libel trail brought by Hunt against Spotlight a newsletter owned by rightwing Liberty Lobby for publishing an article in August of 1976 Written by former CIA agent Victor Marchetti entitled CIA to Admit Hunt Involved in Kennedy Slaying. CIA operative Marita Lorenz swore she saw Hunt in Dallas the night before the assassination. Hunt co-worker Walter Kuzmuk at the CIA said he could not recal having seen Hunt between November 18th and sometime in December of 1963; and Joseph Trento, a reporter for the Wilmington News & Journal, insisted he had once seen an internal CIA memo that said, Someday we will have to explain Hunts presence in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Hunt by the way, lost the case. St. John Hunt (Hunts son), now 52, says his dad left him with enough juicy material about the JFK assassination to fill a book and that he hopes to do just that. The material, St. John says, was cut from his dad's recent memoir, Kelley 17

American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond, because the elder Hunt's attorney was worried he could face perjury charges if he recanted sworn testimony. Does St. John think his planned book will reflect badly on his father? "I don't think it was terrible that he was approached (with the assassination plot) and turned them down," he told the newspaper. In his memoir, E. Howard Hunt suggested that Vice President Lyndon Johnson might have headed the plot to murder JFK. Though Johnson disliked the Kennedys especially Bobby and profited most from President Kennedy's murder, few scholars believe LBJ was in on the conspiracy. Not long ago, the History Channel was forced to yank from its lineup, and apologize for, a program supporting that theory. In the Los Angeles Times and, later, in Rolling Stone, St. John said his dad definitely alleged that LBJ led the plot. And Rolling Stone printed the names of the men Hunt identified as the main conspirators:

David Atlee Phillips, a Hunt friend and CIA propaganda expert who first worked with Hunt in helping to overthrow a leftist government in Guatemala in 1954. He was the chief of covert action in Mexico City in 1963. Phillips later ran President Nixon's successful CIA-led campaign to overthrow Chilean President Salvador Allender.

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Cord Meyer, a CIA agent and disinformation specialist. Meyer's beautiful bohemian ex-wife, Mary Pinchot Meyer, had had an affair with JFK. At age 43, Mary was killed by two professionally placed bullets, fired from up close, as she jogged on a canal towpath near the Potomac River in Washington. Bill Harvey, a CIA veteran with connections to the failed CIA-backed Bay of

Pigs invasion in 1961, and to Mafia godfathers Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana.

Frank Sturgis, a CIA operative and Hunt pal who once boasted to another CIA operative Marita Lorenz that "We killed Kennedy." In 1972, Sturgis was arrested as one of Nixon's Hunt-supervised Watergate burglars. David Morales, a CIA agent who helped train Cuban exiles for the Bay of

Pigs. He also ran CIA-assassination programs in South America and Vietnam. In a drunken tirade in 1973, he said to his close friend Ruben Carbajal, "We took care of that son of a bitch (President Kennedy), didn't we?"

Antonio Veciana, a Cuban exile and the founder of the militant CIA-backed "Alpha 66." Veciana told a Senate investigator he once saw alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald talking with a CIA man he knew as "Maurice Bishop" widely believed to have been David Atlee Phillips's CIA code name.

Kelley 19 In Rolling Stone, St. John Hunt also said dad his told him there was a "French gunman" firing from the famed grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza. And he clearly

recalled his mother telling him, on Nov. 22 1963, that his dad was on a business trip to Dallas. E. Howard Hunt was destined to be remembered by history mainly as President Nixon's chief White House spy a former senior CIA officer who served 33 months in prison for his role as a leader of the Watergate burglary. Now, however, it becomes much easier to at least believe that Hunt was in Dallas on Nov. 22 1963 just as the jury at the libel suit concluded in that 1985 trial. What could have been the purpose of Hunt's "business trip" to Dallas? To stop the plot? It seems more logical to believe that Hunt was among the collaborators. The following little-known links between E. Howard Hunt and the JFK assassination seem to support that line of thinking:

In New Orleans in the early 1960s, Hunt worked out of the same office building perhaps even the same office as Lee Harvey Oswald. On behalf of the CIA, Hunt had set up a dummy organization called "The Cuban Revolutionary Council" at 544 Camp Street the same address Oswald put on pro-Castro leaflets he handed out. That very building, which was close to the local offices of both the CIA and the FBI, also housed the detective agency of former FBI agent Guy Banister, who associated with leaders of the CIA, the Mafia, Cuban exile groups, and with suspected JFK assassination plotter David Ferrie. According to

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a business acquaintance, Banister himself remarked "on several occasions that someone should do away with Kennedy."

Banister and all those with whom he rubbed elbows blamed JFK for the failure of the 1961 CIA-backed invasion of Cuba. They felt the president acted in a cowardly fashion in not providing adequate air cover for the exile invaders. Future president Richard Nixon said Kennedy's behavior was "near criminal." All parties were keenly interested in ousting, even killing, Castro.

Then, there's the handwritten "Dear Mr. Hunt" letter. Famous among JFK assassination researchers, it is dated "Nov. 8, 1963." It reads: "I would like information concerding (sic) my position. I am asking only for information. I am suggesting that we discuss the matter fully before any steps are taken by me or anyone else. Thank you. (signed) Lee Harvey Oswald." The letter, which bears a Mexican postmark, was sent to assassination researcher Penn Jones. According to three handwriting experts, the letter was indeed written by Oswald. Was E. Howard Hunt the Hunt addressed in the letter?

Kelley 21 Back when Nixon was vice president, he and the CIA's Hunt secretly plotted an invasion of Cuba, and favored the murder of Castro. The CIA eventually brought the Mafia into those assassination plots. In addition, Hunt "helped run operations for Nixon against (Greek shipping tycoon) Aristotle Onassis in the late 1950s, when Nixon was vice president under Eisenhower," according to researchers Robert Groden and Harrison Livingstone. Robert Maheu a man connected to the CIA, the Mafia, and to Nixon also took

part in those secret anti-Onassis schemes. Maheu later disclosed that Vice President Nixon whispered to him at the time, "If it turns out we have to kill the bastard, just don't do it on American soil." Guy Banister's secretary and Lee Harvey Oswald's brother are among those who said Oswald was a frequent visitor to Banister's office. Ex-CIA agent Victor Marchetti has linked Hunt (and Hunt's old CIA buddy and fellow future Watergater, Frank Sturgis) to David Ferrie. Hunt's CIA-connected pal Bernard Barker known as "Hunt's Shadow" because the two men were so close was also spotted in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Assassination witness Seymour Weitzman identified Barker as the man on the grassy knoll who posed as a Secret Service agent and kept people out of the area. Nine years later, under Hunt's supervision, Barker and four other CIA men broke into the Watergate on behalf of President Nixon.

Kelley 22 As we have seen, Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis also had JFK assassination links. At the 1985 libel trial involving Hunt's links, CIA operative Marita Lorenz a former Castro mistress and a friend of Sturgis placed Sturgis, as well as Hunt and Jack Ruby, at a Dallas CIA "safe house" the night before the assassination. Believe it or not Richard Nixon was in Dallas on Nov. 22nd. Was he really there for his stated purpose a PepsiCo convention (Nixon was Pepsi's chief lawyer at the time)? Or could his presence have been some sort of signal to his

friends in the Mob and the CIA and among the Cuban exiles the eventual chief suspects of JFK assassination conspiracy theorists? Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana proudly told relatives that as the mastermind of the JFK assassination plot he was also in Dallas at the time. He claimed he and Nixon had a pre-assassination meeting there to discuss the plot. And shouldn't some investigative entity grill Hunt's old White House boss, Charles Colson? After all, Colson was present when President Nixon declared in May 1972 that the Warren Commission staged "the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated" in finding that Oswald was Kennedy's lone killer. What does Colson know about that particular Nixon comment on a White House tape released in 2002? And what might Colson know about Nixon's 1972 attempt to gain CIA help in the Watergate cover-up by trying to blackmail CIA chief Richard Helms over the secrets that E. Howard Hunt might blab? Secrets about the CIA's links to "the Kelley 23 Bay of Pigs?" Top Nixon aide Bob Haldeman later revealed that "the Bay of Pigs" was Nixon/CIA code for the JFK assassination. Haldeman maintained that the CIA pulled off a "fantastic cover-up" of its role in the JFK assassination. In 1972, shortly after the Watergate burglary, on Nixon's orders, Haldeman tried to get CIA boss Helms to tell the FBI to stop investigating the break-in on grounds that it could hurt CIA operations. Helms lost his composure when Haldeman mentioned that Hunt's connection to the burglary could re-open "the whole Bay of Pigs thing." According to Haldeman, Helms, "a typically cold-as-a-

cucumber, icy, super-spy type guy, came totally unglued He leaped up in enormous excitement, concern and panic and said, 'This has nothing to do with the Bay of Pigs.'" After calming down, Helms did agree to talk to the FBI. On Nixon's behalf, aide John Ehrichman made several futile attempts to pry agency "Bay of Pigs" files out of Helms. Ehrlichman's notes show the president wanted the CIA chief to turn over the "full file" because Nixon himself was "deeply involved." A statement made later by Watergate burglar and former CIA operative Frank Sturgis supports the possibility that the "Bay of Pigs" phrase, when used in Nixon's White House, was a euphemism for the JFK assassination. Sturgis said Nixon asked Helms "several times" for "the files on the Kennedy assassination but Helms refused to give it to him, refused a direct order from the president." Sturgis even claimed the Watergate break-in was a CIA operation designed to

Kelley 24 topple Nixon because the agency felt he was becoming overly interested in the JFK murder. (Fulsom) Was Nixon involved in some way with President Kennedys assassination? He may have been who really knows? They have sealed much of the official reports and eye witnesses if they are still alive are few and far between. There are other works in greater length that give more information about this topic. One place to research is Church Commission: Book V The Investigation of the Assassination of President JFK: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies and another is HSCA Report, Volume

X. You could research this for years and find new twist in this conspiracy theory. For now the information provided is over whelming. I personally feel there is much truth to this theory. The Warren Commission just released recently volumes of information to the public. It would take quite a bit of time to read the amount of information they are allowing us to view. Maybe some day we will get to know the whole truth however for now we the curious must speculate on the facts and fiction of this mystery.

Kelley 25 Cited works - Elliston,Jon. Castro and Kennedy Assassination, Para Scope: www.papascope.com - Fulsom, Don. Blowing Smoke From The Grave: E. Howard Hunt and the JFK Assassination, 6 June 2007, Crime Magazine An Encyclopedia of Crime, www.crimemagazine.com/blowing-smoke-grave-e-howard-hunt-and-jfk-assassination - Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me, The New Press, pgs. 230-231, copyright 1995 & 2000, uvm.edu/~jloewen or [email protected] - Molina,Gabriel. The Secret Transparency of the Kennedy Assassination, copy righted 1996-2003, Granma International/Online Edition, www.granma.cu/ingles/2003/nviembre03/vier14/45kennedy - Russell, Dick. JFK and the Cuban Connection, www.assassinationweb.com/russell - Simpich, Bill. The JFK: What Informants Are Still Out There, November 2009, www.opednews.com

Other Cited Work Church Commission: Book V Investigation of the Assassination of President JFK: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies, www.maryferrell.org/mffwev/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId-1161

Kelley 26 HSCA Report, Volume X, www.maryferrel.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/snowDoc.do? docId=1212

Photos(1) Kennedy Portrait, www.comicvine.com/john-f-kennedy/29-33077/ (2) Molina, Gabriel. The Secret Transparency of the Kennedy Assassination, copy righted

1996-2003, Granma International/Online Edition, www.granma.cu/ingles/2003/noviembre03/vier14/45kennedy(3) Bullet Points, January 2007, http://marvel.wikia.com/john-f.-kennedy_(Earth-7005) (4) Fulsom, Don. Love Field Dallas Texas, 22 November 1963, courtesy NARA,

www.crimemagine.com/blowing-smoke-grave-e-howard-hunt-and-jfk-assassination(5) Fulsom, Don. Did Jack Ruby Know Lee Harvey Oswald?,

www.crimemagazine.com/blowing-smoke-grave-e-howard-hunt-and-jfk-assassination