Legacy of Secrecy (33 page)

Fiorini, who had been involved in a potential aircraft deal with Artime

in Dallas.14 One of Hunt’s associates actually worked for Trafficante,

while Hunt knew and sometimes worked with Rosselli’s good friend

David Morales. When added to the information about Hunt mentioned

in Chapter 2, it appears likely that Hunt did know about Rosselli’s work

on the unauthorized Castro assassination plots.

Whether E. Howard Hunt knew Rosselli had also been conspiring

with Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante to assassinate JFK is another

matter. While Harry told us that Hunt’s associate who worked for Traf-

ficante was involved in JFK’s assassination, Harry didn’t say that Hunt

participated (even though Harry considered Hunt “a son of a bitch” and

a man of “dubious” character, whom Harry didn’t trust). Hunt’s vary-

ing stories about his whereabouts on November 22 could be due to the

secrecy surrounding his meetings that day regarding the JFK-Almeida

coup plan, since it had never been exposed or declassified while Hunt

was testifying in court or to Congressional committees. Also, various

photos that some researchers thought were of E. Howard Hunt in Dealey

Plaza have so far all turned out to be of someone else. Weighing against

Hunt’s knowing involvement is the fact that he knew the coup was only

ten days away: Killing JFK would delay, if not prevent, the assassination

of Fidel, whom Hunt hated with a passion. Hunt was extremely ambi-

tious, and it seems counterintuitive for him to have sabotaged a covert

plan in which he had a pivotal role, one that would be rewarded if the

coup succeeded.

It’s possible Hunt was simply used by his associates with mob ties,

men who were working for Trafficante and Rosselli. It’s also conceivable

that Hunt’s culpability was at the level of having “guilty knowledge,”

a term an informant used to describe Hunt’s longtime friend Artime to

Congressional investigators. However, given the fact that so many of

Hunt’s associates were working with the Mafia—specifically people,

like Trafficante, who had JFK killed—it can’t be ruled out that Hunt was

knowingly involved, that his hatred of JFK overshadowed any desire the

ardently anticommunist Hunt had to see Fidel eliminated. The actions of

Hunt and his associates described in future chapters provide additional

insights that will help to make his role clearer.

While Harry was at lunch, he learned that JFK had been shot. This must

have been a stunning blow for Harry, both on a personal level (since he

had gotten to know JFK) and for Harry’s crusade to free Cuba. As his

meeting with the CIA men resumed, they learned that JFK was dead.

Harry said that Hunt and the other agent present both acted cool when

they heard the news, unlike the very high-ranking CIA official who

was present. That was likely Lyman Kirkpatrick, who had probably

just arrived from CIA headquarters. Harry said that the high official

“really felt it” and was “upset”—so much so that he got mad at Harry

because he felt Harry was acting too calm in response to the news. Harry

explained to us that the word of JFK’s death really shocked him, but

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“when things get tough, I get very cool” and he tried to keep calm, just

as he had when he was under fire at the Bay of Pigs.

But Kirkpatrick said, “Don’t you feel” anything? Don’t “you care that

President Kennedy was killed?”

Harry looked at him and said, “Look, let’s talk about all this.” But

Kirkpatrick seemed suspicious of Harry after that, and the meeting soon

broke up. Perhaps Kirkpatrick had misinterpreted Harry’s remark in

the morning session about getting professionals to eliminate Fidel, and

wondered if Harry or his associates had something to do with JFK’s

death. In actuality, Kirkpatrick should have been much more suspicious

of Hunt and some of his associates.15 For that matter, when Kirkpatrick

met with McCone and Helms at CIA headquarters at 5:00 PM, the for-

mer Inspector General would have been suspicious of Helms if he had

known the secrets Helms was keeping from him and McCone.

Harry headed back to his room at the Ebbitt Hotel, where the CIA had its

Cuban and other Hispanic visitors stay. He had arranged earlier to meet

journalist Haynes Johnson there. Haynes didn’t know it, but Harry had

thought it would be their last meeting before he went to Cuba for the

coup. Along with Artime and two other exiles, Harry had been working

with Haynes on a book about the Bay of Pigs. It was part of the public-

ity blitz engineered by Bobby Kennedy mentioned earlier, that would

include an NBC News special about the Bay of Pigs, hosted by the lead-

ing news anchors of the day, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Bobby

hoped it would all be timed to show off the former Bay of Pigs leaders

who would become part of the new leadership in Cuba after the coup.

Two months earlier, Artime had told one of his CIA case officers about

the book, in a memo that has recently been declassified. Artime told CIA

officer Henry Hecksher that he believed the book was “being published

under the auspices of the Attorney General, who [had] introduced the

author” to Artime. At that point, Artime had “received royalties in the

total amount of $2,800,” and Artime said, “The book is about ready for

publication.” (Its appearance was apparently delayed after JFK’s death.)

Artime had been concerned that the book might criticize the CIA, and

Hecksher reported Artime’s concerns to Desmond FitzGerald.16

Before Haynes arrived at the Ebbitt Hotel, Harry had already put

in a call to Bobby’s office at the Justice Department. Bobby called back

shortly after Haynes arrived. Anthony Summers, who investigated the

timing of the call for
Vanity Fair,
puts Bobby’s call at approximately

4:00 PM (Eastern), fifteen minutes before the first network news reports

of Oswald’s arrest. It could not have happened even a minute later,

because at 4:01 PM, Bobby received a phone call from J. Edgar Hoover

alerting him to Oswald’s arrest. Based on Hoover’s declassified notes,

that call must have lasted at least ten or twelve minutes; Bobby then left

his estate at 4:15 PM, heading for the Pentagon, to meet with General

Maxwell Taylor and Defense Secretary McNamara.17 Our most recent

analysis indicates that Bobby’s call to Harry was probably made at least

a few minutes prior to 4:00 PM, sometime after McCone left Bobby’s at

3:30 PM.

After Bobby had spoken on the phone to Harry for a few moments,

Harry mentioned that Haynes Johnson was with him. Bobby asked to

speak to Haynes, who writes that “Robert Kennedy was utterly in con-

trol of his emotions when he came on the line, and sounded almost

studiedly brisk as he said: ‘One of your guys did it.’”18

It’s important to stress that both Haynes Johnson and Harry agree

that Bobby said, “One of your guys did it”—killed JFK—to Haynes, not

to Harry. Haynes confirmed that to us in 1992, and again in May 2007.

Harry said Bobby never voiced any suspicion like that to him on that

day or any other; a close Kennedy associate—who knew Bobby, Haynes,

and Harry—backed up Harry’s statement.19

Haynes wrote that he assumed at the time that Bobby had received an

early FBI or Secret Service report that “had identified Lee Harvey Oswald

as being involved with the anti-Castro group.” Haynes may have been

correct, but in ways he didn’t realize, since he was unaware of the JFK-

Almeida coup plan. If Bobby received a report about Oswald prior to

Hoover’s 4:01 PM call, there is no record of it. Any such report would

have had to come from the CIA or the DIA (particularly Naval Intel-

ligence), since certain officials at both agencies knew that Oswald had

been under “tight surveillance.” Oswald’s involvement with “the anti-

Castro group” included a visit to one of Artime’s small training camps

outside of New Orleans, the work with Banister and Ferrie described by

CIA agent Hunter Leake, and even Oswald’s trip to Mexico City.

However, the tight timing makes it uncertain if Bobby had even

heard Oswald’s name by the time he spoke to Haynes. Even J. Edgar

Hoover didn’t find out about Oswald until 3:50 PM (Eastern time). That

means it’s possible, even probable, that Bobby’s reaction and comment

to Haynes was due to whatever feeling or clue had caused him to ques-

tion McCone a short time earlier. That was likely the fact that JFK was

shot by one or more snipers while riding in an open car, mirroring the

plan for Castro that a later AMWORLD memo revealed. In any event, the

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evidence shows that the link Bobby had in mind was Artime or someone

in his organization, and would also explain why Bobby would make the

“your guys” comment to Haynes and not Harry, due to the friction that

had developed between Harry and Artime.

Haynes would later write that within a year or so after JFK’s death,

he heard that Artime was involved in the drug trade. In addition,

Haynes also wrote about one of Artime’s protégés during Watergate,

who became a major Miami drug lord at the same time Trafficante still

wielded power there.20

Only after twenty years had passed would Haynes Johnson write a

detailed account of his November 22, 1963, meeting with Harry Wil-

liams. Even then he would avoid naming Harry, whose name had not

appeared in any of the Congressional reports on JFK’s assassination

issued a few years earlier (though it had surfaced in some staff memos).

In 1981 Haynes mentioned Bobby’s remark very briefly in a long article

about a distinguished Bay of Pigs veteran. Otherwise, the only time

Haynes talked about those activities was in 1973, when he was inter-

viewed by a researcher about Harry, Bobby, and the exiles. However,

only a few parts of the interview were summarized in a small newsletter,

so it received no attention from newspaper or television journalists.

Why have so many mainstream journalists been reluctant to inves-

tigate or write about the evidence of a conspiracy in JFK’s death? One

reason involves just how many highly regarded journalists were friends

with JFK or Bobby, or Helms, or Hoover, or others involved in various

aspects of the story. For example, Ben Bradlee, the longtime
Washing-

ton Post
editor who became famous during the newspaper’s Watergate

investigation, was very close to JFK. Another example is
New York Times

reporter Tad Szulc, who actually worked with Bobby, Morales, and

others on developing the AMTRUNK operation, trying to find a high-

ranking Cuban leader to stage a coup before Almeida emerged. How-

ever, it’s also worth noting that a few journalists, like Haynes and Szulc,

did eventually attempt to make some of their information known.

Not long after Bobby spoke to Harry and made his provocative remark

to Haynes Johnson, he left his estate and headed for the Pentagon. But

sometime prior to that, earlier in the afternoon and probably while

McCone was en route to Bobby’s Hickory Hill estate, Bobby had made

another intriguing call—to CIA headquarters, according to journalists

George Bailey and Seymour Freidin. (Freidin was the
New York Herald-

Tribune’
s foreign-affairs editor, later revealed by Jack Anderson to have

been a paid CIA informant in the 1960s; author David Talbot believes

Freidin got his information about Bobby directly from one of his CIA

contacts.) Freidin says that Bobby spoke to a high-level CIA official at

headquarters about the shooting of JFK and demanded to know: “Did

your outfit have anything to do with this horror?”21

Viewing this call in context with Bobby’s similar question to McCone,

his flat-out statement to Haynes, and his call to Julius Draznin, we can

clearly see Bobby’s suspicion, that someone connected with the anti-

Castro operations and the Mafia had turned their sights on JFK. Also,

it’s possible that information Bobby received from McCone during their

long talk, or as additional details about the shooting emerged, allowed

Bobby to evolve from questioning the CIA to making a declaration to

Haynes.

As cited earlier, the timing probably prevented Bobby from knowing

Oswald’s name when he made his statement to Haynes, but the pos-

sibility can’t be excluded. A few years ago, a Cuban exile associate of

Artime made an uncorroborated claim to several authors that Oswald’s

name had been reported to Bobby prior to JFK’s death, but this man

did so while apparently trying to justify a preassassination encounter

he claimed to have had with Oswald. Also, this Artime associate never

mentioned any of Artime’s Mafia ties, thus seriously undermining his

own credibility. However, even without those claims, we can’t rule

out that Bobby might have had some general awareness of Oswald (or

Hidell, the alias first found by police on an ID card in his wallet) as one