Legacy of Secrecy (107 page)

an international ring which appeared to overlap with narcotics opera-

tions.” The ring would last from the 1960s to the 1980s, when “thirteen

DFS officials were indicted in California,” though the “DFS Director . . .

was initially protected from indictment by the CIA.”12

In the fall of 1967, James Earl Ray was just a very small cog in the

Mafia’s smuggling operation in Laredo, Texas, site of the October 1963

heroin bust of the Marcello/Trafficante/Mertz portion of the French

Connection heroin pipeline. On October 7, 1967, Ray said he crossed

the border in his Mustang at Laredo, and in Mexico he checked into a

Nuevo Laredo motel frequented by criminals, the type of place “where

the owner is somewhat under suspicion.”

Ray admitted he smuggled something in a spare tire from the US

into Mexico and said he was paid “$2,000 [more than $12,000 today] in

$20 bills.” In addition, Ray said he was promised his employers would

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

eventually provide him with travel documents under another name

and “enough money for me to go into business in a new country. He

mentioned 10 or 12 thousand dollars. He also said it would involve tak-

ing guns and accessories into Mexico.” With the man Ray called Raoul

was “a Mexican, with Indian-like features.” Ray planned to go to Los

Angeles after he left Mexico, but he would remain south of the border

for another month.13

Ray drove across Mexico, to Acapulco for a few days, then to Puerto

Vallarta for the rest of his time. He frequented a Mexican prostitute and

may have trafficked in marijuana, but the real money was in harder

drugs. According to one of Ray’s brothers, when he left Mexico for Cali-

fornia in mid-November, Ray “hauled dope to LA.” His brother said that

Ray “carried the drugs on his person . . . and delivered them to someone

at the St. Francis in Los Angeles.”14

Apparently, Ray was well paid and expecting even bigger money

soon, because in Los Angeles he rented an apartment on November 19,

1967, and soon began an unusual spending spree. It would include six

visits to a clinical psychologist to learn about self-hypnosis (the practi-

tioner was only one of several Ray would consult), $364 for dance les-

sons, and even plastic surgery. Ray had shown the mob he could handle

jobs effectively, so they gave him more assignments, including one that

would require him to drive across the country to New Orleans to meet

with associates of Carlos Marcello.

Johnny Rosselli faced a new legal challenge on October 27, 1967, when

“Rosselli was indicted under the Alien Registration Act” for being an

illegal alien, according to G. Robert Blakey. Rosselli had been in the clear

by May 1967 as a result of the pressure his leaks to Jack Anderson had

generated on Helms and the CIA, but his recent Friars Club charges had

helped to revive the immigration case.15

As he had done before, Rosselli turned to his old friend William Har-

vey for help. Rosselli called Harvey on the day of his indictment, asking

Harvey to represent him, but he declined. However, Harvey still wanted

to help his friend, so he tried to pressure the CIA’s FBI liaison, Sam

Papich, over lunch on November 6, 1967. Harvey became “incensed”

when Papich suggested that he end his relationship with Rosselli.

Instead, Harvey warned that if he cut off Rosselli, “the Agency could

get itself in serious trouble”—which sounds like Harvey was threaten-

ing that he or Rosselli might reveal more about Helms’s unauthorized

operations to someone like Jack Anderson.16

Rosselli met with Harvey on November 26, 27, and 28, 1967. Though

Harvey was technically with the CIA for retirement purposes until the

end of the year, he was no longer an active agent. Harvey was bitter at

the Agency and seemed to side completely with Rosselli. Apparently,

he still had some influence in the Agency because within a couple of

months, the FBI would be complaining about pressure to end Rosselli’s

prosecution.17

For Bobby Kennedy, the fourth anniversary of his brother’s slaying was

very different from the previous year. In the fall of 1967, Bobby con-

stantly had to tell aides and the press that he wasn’t going to challenge

LBJ for the presidential nomination. Yet he made clear in his private

comments (though much less so in public) that he was very critical of

LBJ for not pursuing peace talks to end the conflict in Vietnam, or finding

a way to scale back the war. Whatever had transpired with LBJ back in

the late spring of 1967, when the Jack Anderson articles had stopped,

still seemed to have Bobby in a straitjacket.

Bobby’s appearance on CBS’s
Face the Nation
on November 26, 1967,

poignantly brought home his uneasy and almost untenable dichotomy.

Just four days after the anniversary of his brother’s murder, one almost

surreal exchange reflected his lingering despair over JFK: Three news-

men, including Roger Mudd and the
New York Times
’ Tom Wicker,

pressed Bobby to resolve the apparent discrepancy between his oppo-

sition to the war and his support for LBJ. If Bobby wanted to end the

war, wasn’t it inevitable that he would have to challenge LBJ for the

presidency?18

An obviously uncomfortable Bobby could only respond, “I don’t

know what I can do to prevent that or what I should do that is any dif-

ferent other than try to get off the earth in some way.”19

The newsmen sat stunned for a moment before one of them said,

“Senator, nobody wants you to get off the earth, obviously.” They backed

off, claiming, “Nobody is trying to put you on the spot, really.” Of course,

that’s exactly what they were doing, yet they, like Bobby’s own staff and

advisors, simply couldn’t understand why he felt he couldn’t run—and

Bobby couldn’t tell them.20

Bobby probably noticed that instead of a rising tide of JFK conspiracy

articles in the mainstream press, most had reverted to generally sup-

porting the Warren Report and reporting skeptically, often with hostil-

ity, about Garrison’s investigation. No one else in the news media had

picked up on his leaks to
Life
about Carlos Marcello, meaning that the

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

national press still had not linked the godfather and the Mafia to JFK’s

murder. Two months would pass before Bobby would try again to focus

press attention on Marcello.

One article that certainly caught Bobby’s attention was the December

6, 1967,
New York Time
s report on Abraham Bolden. Headlined “Plot on

Kennedy in Chicago Told,” the story marked the first time the press had

revealed anything about the attempt to kill JFK in Chicago three weeks

before Dallas. Bolden was still in prison at the time, and his attorneys,

including Mark Lane, had generated the article in an attempt to garner

publicity for his appeal. However, the article produced little follow-up,

and the story soon died (or was suppressed).21

For Bobby, the article would have been a painful reminder of the

secrets that kept him from challenging LBJ. Based on our talk with a close

Kennedy associate, it is clear that Bobby wanted to help Bolden—but

Bobby knew that any action on his part would bring up matters that

could prevent him from ever being in a position to bring JFK’s killers

to justice.22

Unnoticed by the general public, some private citizens were taking

action. Bernard Fensterwald, former Senate investigator for Senator

Edward Long when the CIA-Mafia plots had surfaced briefly in their

private discussions, was now trying to aid Jim Garrison. He had inter-

viewed William Somersett about Milteer, and would soon interview

four Chicago newsmen, some of whom confirmed hearing about the

plot to kill JFK in Chicago on November 2, 1963. Still, Fensterwald was

an attorney, not a journalist, and he knew he needed all the facts before

he tried to go public. At the time, it would have been hard for Fenster-

wald to see how Milteer’s story fit in with the Chicago threat and the

CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, especially since Garrison kept chasing

(or being diverted to) so many blind alleys that needlessly complicated

things.23

Also taking notice of the
New York Times
article about Bolden and the

Chicago threat was the CIA, which generated a memo about the mat-

ter. The CIA memo contained information linking Cuban exiles to the

Chicago threat, something that hadn’t been mentioned in the
Times
arti-

cle. The CIA’s Bolden memo also brought up their former asset from

1963 and the CIA-Mafia plots, Richard Cain. Richard Helms was no

doubt glad when the media did not pursue the
Times
’s revelation about

Bolden and Chicago—though whether the CIA had anything to do with

that is unclear, since the CIA’s file on Abraham Bolden, and many of its

records on Cain, have never been released.24

Chapter Forty-four

Carlos Marcello apparently decided to become involved in the hit on

Martin Luther King, soon after the fourth anniversary of JFK’s assas-

sination. But unlike in JFK’s murder, Marcello was not the driving force

behind Dr. King’s assassination. He was only the high-level broker for

the contract from Milteer’s small Atlanta group, and was extremely well

paid to make sure the right people were in place to do the job.

If the information in the Justice Department memo is correct, the fee

of $300,000 (almost $2 million today) that Marcello demanded is more

than twice what Milteer’s group had originally been willing to pay—but

nothing else had worked, and Milteer knew the power Marcello could

bring to bear on the murder and its aftermath. Because much of the

Milteer group’s money was invested in North Carolina mountain real

estate, it likely took them some time to raise the $300,000 in cash. Other

wealthy racist supporters, on the level of Sutherland in St. Louis and

some referred to (though not by name) in the Justice Department memo,

may have contributed as well.

For holding a few meetings, Marcello would clear the equivalent of

nearly $1 million in today’s dollars. He would also have the potential

of getting even more from the leverage Marcello would gain over the

racists putting up the money, as mentioned in the Justice Department

memo. In a typical mob contract, Marcello would take at least half off the

top for himself. The remainder would be used by whatever Mafia lieu-

tenant was delegated the main task of coordinating the hit. That person

would work with other trusted mobsters to hire the hit man and others

needed, and to arrange bribes if necessary. By the time the hit man got

his share of the money, it could be as little as $10,000 or $20,000.

Despite the money, Carlos Marcello would not have become involved

unless he wanted King dead as well, and was certain his participation

would not expose his role in JFK’s murder. As for the latter concern, the

fact that his name—or any mention of the Mafia—had failed to surface

in the JFK anniversary’s press coverage showed him that his efforts to

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

divert and compromise Garrison had worked, leaving him with noth-

ing to fear.

As for Martin Luther King, he had publicly declared the Mafia his

enemy two years earlier, writing in the
Saturday Review
that

Organized crime . . . flourishes in the ghettos—designed, directed,

and cultivated by the white national crime syndicates operating

numbers, narcotics, and prostitution rackets freely in the protected

sanctuaries of the ghettos. Because no one, including the police, cares

particularly about ghetto crime, it pervades every area of life.1

Black journalist Louis Lomax wrote that shortly before Martin Luther

King was killed, Dr. King “was on the verge of exposing . . . the influ-

ence of the underworld in ghetto economic life [so] I was surprised

[when] Martin did not disappear into Lake Michigan, his feet encased

in concrete.”2

As detailed in Chapter 41, Carlos Marcello had many reasons, both

racial and financial, to want to eliminate Martin Luther King. Given all

of those factors, it’s not hard to understand why Marcello decided to

broker Milteer’s contract. Before making that decision, Marcello and

his lieutenants in New Orleans, such as Frank Joseph Caracci or Jack

Liberto (related to Memphis’s Frank C. Liberto), would have carefully

considered the people in their organization to find someone who could

be used in the hit and could take the fall.

Once Marcello had agreed to broker the contract to kill Dr. King,

it’s possible that James Earl Ray was not his first or only choice, in the

same way that Marcello had originally planned to kill JFK in Chicago or

Tampa before finally succeeding in Dallas. Ray’s last attorney, William

Pepper, found three witnesses who said a Tennessee man named “Red

Nix [who] knew Marcello and undertook various jobs for him [had] been

given a new car and a rifle and paid $5,000 a week to track and kill King,”